Bears repeating

The 2004 Weblog awards are on and I was rather surprised (although very pleasantly) that this blog has been shortlisted for the 'Best UK Blog' - so thank you to my anonymous fairy blogmothers who made that happen.

Two things, therefore, need to be done.

A campaign speech, of course. But first I wanted to reproduce a comment I made on the site regarding all this controversy about the nomination/selection process. It seems some people aren't particularly happy about who was shortlisted and are really acting like jerks about it.

I'm not going to be apologetic for being on the list because there's no conspiracy that put me there in the first place. So far as I know, there has been no behind-the-scenes string-pulling and friendship-using. In fact, I was the one who told a couple of the Samizdata crew that they were up for the award themselves - days after the selection list went up.

So here's my comment, repeated, because I thought it was pertinent:

"Why is there so much goddamned bitterness about this? We're not exactly talking about cash prizes and bikini babes draped over expensive, high performance cars. We're talking about a little bit of extra traffic for a couple of weeks.

If the blogs are, indeed, shite then that traffic spike won't last beyond that boost.

Disliking the list because you dislike the politics or don't actually read those blogs is one thing.
Resorting to disparaging the authors of those blogs ("Disturbing-out-of-touch-with-reality-extremists") is a little juvenile. I'm one of the bloggers on that list - nominated without my knowledge and then shortlisted without my knowledge or input.

Don't like the competition? Do the most American thing in the world, get out there and run your own competition instead of doing the very French thing and whining about the unfairness of it all."

Right, now that that unpleasantness is over and done with, let's get on with the fun part - me making promises I have no intention of keeping past the inaugurtion my campaign spiel.

On to the next post.

M

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***Campaign Speech - DRAFT - Not To Be Released. ***

My fellow bloggers, readers and even those unpleasant lurking assholes who do nothing bar leave nasty comments all over the 'net,

I think it's important to remember why we're doing this in the first place - why we blog. We blog for money power revenge babes something to do on the lonely nights when even the dog won't spend time with us the pleasure of striking fear into the hearts of lizards like Dan Rather the fun of it.

We are a rare increasingly common breed of people who have some desire to stir the pot have our say in the world. By publishing our thoughts online, we hope to provoke thought and unmitigated violence rational discussion on topics close to us. Some of us just like to waffle on about crap that no-one else cares about muse on different topics or describe our lives - and that's just fine too.

Fine because, in the end, blogs are irrelevant a 'pull' rather than 'flush' 'push' medium. If people don't agree with or like some blogs, they just disparage them and slander the author any way they can ignore them and go read something they like - casting their vote with their readership and loyalty.

So here's the deal with these awards and what I promise.

I promise absolutely nothing.

Nothing will change on this blog if I win or lose or come in somewhere in the middle. I have loyal readers, some of which have become close friends, which I would lose if I were to suddenly decide to engineer this thing toward the sole end of popularity. I enjoy writing the things I do on here, in the style which I choose to do it in, at the pace which I've chosen and with the quirks, irregularities and annoyances which probably means that I have and will always have a limited audence.

So be it.

So to those that have come to this blog because you clicked through from Wizbang's awards - welcome. There are a lot of archives here and my writing doesn't tend to be too topical, so it's worth a read even if it's months old.

To those of my readers who genuinely think that mine is the best blog listed under that category - please vote for me. If you think mine's no good - may I suggest you take a look at Samizdata. My standing at the end of the awards won't make me cry but some support is, of course, nice.

To those who weren't nominated this year, tough well, there's always next year. You could always do what I did and sleep with all the guys making the decisions to shortlist completely ignore the awards and have them sneak up on you in a pleasant way.

In any case, let's keep our focus on what's really important in the blogosphere fisking anyone within range - writing.

M