This is something I've been meaning to write but didn't have the time until now.
Someone wrote an aside, in an e-mail, that we were 'ego-tripping' having these awards. Certainly for Blogpower itself, it has to be doing it a power of good. Basically, we were just trying to run a "transparent" and "fair" awards.
High sounding words but they were the genesis of Blogpower in the first place .
The reason we started was that first I and then others of the "small blogger" ilk wanted to know why nominations for awards were always so closed, i.e. one is always presented with a fait accompli. "Here are your nominees - vote for them."
Go to our very first post at Blogpower.
We railed against that and wanted something which would help us all. So we "bomb" each other's sites, we comment, we're active, we link to each other, we help the other's stats and thereby our own.
We even had The Tin Drummer on Radio 5 Live. Tom Paine [The Last Ditch], Ian Appleby [Imagined Community] and The ThunderDragon are active. I've left out so many here.
Exclusive? Are we heck as like. Look at the tone in the Awards banner. It's for anyone of any political, religious, geographical or sexual hue. And in this is the biggest surprise we've had. With such violently opposed views in the one group, surely we'd split into fragments?
We nearly did.
We had our crisis, just before the Fawkes/Dale/Ireland crisis, which came at the right time for us, actually. Then people thought to themselves that we had something here and you had to be inside Blogpower to understand the cozy atmosphere, the closeness in such an internationally distributed group.
Welshcakes [Sicily Scene] is a typical Blogpowerer. So is Ian Grey, Benedict White, Westminster Wisdom, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe and so on. Look at the truly class bloggers who could hold their own on the world stage. But we have fuzzy edges too - Lord Nazh, Matt and Mutley, for example. It's so low tech. Sure we have our techies but just look at our site and the slightly amateurish feel to it. We like it that way.
So - these Awards? We wanted people who otherwise wouldn't be given the chance to be able to have a banner to put on their sites, saying: "Nominated for ..." or "Placegetter in ..." or some such to put besides their Iain Dale 100 banners. And a banner which meant something, not just some minor little exercise.
Now, here's the thing, people. You think we're doing this to canvass for new members? The opposite! More than a few have expressed grave concern that we're growing too big and might lose the "collegiate" atmosphere. Soon it might not be necessary to act but we're a bit slow on these things [busy, you know].
What qualities do you need to be a Blogpowerer? Love to blog, be tolerant and enjoy our atmosphere. That's it.
Someone wrote an aside, in an e-mail, that we were 'ego-tripping' having these awards. Certainly for Blogpower itself, it has to be doing it a power of good. Basically, we were just trying to run a "transparent" and "fair" awards.
High sounding words but they were the genesis of Blogpower in the first place .
The reason we started was that first I and then others of the "small blogger" ilk wanted to know why nominations for awards were always so closed, i.e. one is always presented with a fait accompli. "Here are your nominees - vote for them."
Go to our very first post at Blogpower.
We railed against that and wanted something which would help us all. So we "bomb" each other's sites, we comment, we're active, we link to each other, we help the other's stats and thereby our own.
We even had The Tin Drummer on Radio 5 Live. Tom Paine [The Last Ditch], Ian Appleby [Imagined Community] and The ThunderDragon are active. I've left out so many here.
Exclusive? Are we heck as like. Look at the tone in the Awards banner. It's for anyone of any political, religious, geographical or sexual hue. And in this is the biggest surprise we've had. With such violently opposed views in the one group, surely we'd split into fragments?
We nearly did.
We had our crisis, just before the Fawkes/Dale/Ireland crisis, which came at the right time for us, actually. Then people thought to themselves that we had something here and you had to be inside Blogpower to understand the cozy atmosphere, the closeness in such an internationally distributed group.
Welshcakes [Sicily Scene] is a typical Blogpowerer. So is Ian Grey, Benedict White, Westminster Wisdom, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe and so on. Look at the truly class bloggers who could hold their own on the world stage. But we have fuzzy edges too - Lord Nazh, Matt and Mutley, for example. It's so low tech. Sure we have our techies but just look at our site and the slightly amateurish feel to it. We like it that way.
So - these Awards? We wanted people who otherwise wouldn't be given the chance to be able to have a banner to put on their sites, saying: "Nominated for ..." or "Placegetter in ..." or some such to put besides their Iain Dale 100 banners. And a banner which meant something, not just some minor little exercise.
Now, here's the thing, people. You think we're doing this to canvass for new members? The opposite! More than a few have expressed grave concern that we're growing too big and might lose the "collegiate" atmosphere. Soon it might not be necessary to act but we're a bit slow on these things [busy, you know].
What qualities do you need to be a Blogpowerer? Love to blog, be tolerant and enjoy our atmosphere. That's it.
6 comments:
Thank you, James. You're a good man.
I think we're a good group and don't let me get started on your site. :)
I blog for fun, blogpower gives me a chance to show off and fool about - with a bigger audience! Now how could that be wrong...? I also meet intelligent people - which is disturbing - but still we all have a cross to bear. I have always have fuzzy edges Mr H...!
Nice one, James.
I'm sure we won't be what we are now in twelve months time, but so what? No animals were harmed in the making of these awards, ony blegos.
No offense, but do know that to the outside world, these awards really look like they are meant for blogs that are a part of blogpower. If these are truly transparent and fair awards, why is there all this editorial on blogpower and blogpower bloggers? The intimation is that people should be voting for blogpower blogs. If you look at ANY other blog awards, there is no editorial about blogs on the competition page.
Also, it really is inappropriate in my opionion to leave up blog scores from the nomination period...what does that have to do with anything?
In any event, I am not mentioning the awards to my readers and I expect that very few of them have heard about them. What we do know is that the blogpower bloggers have.
Maryam - what do you mean "all these posts"? This is the Blogpower site, which is hosting the awards. And what? If it was Facebook or MyBlogLog or whatever, I'd expect to have them explain who they are and what they're about.
Surely when you visit, you like to know with whom you're dealing? Some do wish to know that and have e-mailed me to the effect. Hence the explanatory post.
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