Awards in tatters as Sunday Times raises questions
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I was going to write about this a week ago but I knew it would be misinterpreted as sour grapes, so I left it. But after today's Sunday Times article about the 2007 SA Blog Awards, it would be silly not to.

In brief, the Sunday Times revealed that half the judges of the Blog Awards also happen to be finalists in at least one category. It quoted Woza Friday Blog as saying, "It strikes me as inappropriate that most panelists are also nominated for awards". Eric Edelstein wrote, "Can't the blog awards find some impartial judges? It seems like an old boys' blog club at the moment".

They discussed the situation with Jon Cherry, awards coordinator and creator of the ever-exciting and riveting Cherryflava blog site, who confirmed that he:

"had contacted people who were passionate about
blogging to ask them if they would participate"

Three words: HI LA RIOUS!

Is that what you did? And why would you not contact me, Jon? Isn't it weird that you didn't contact 2oceansvibe about this - the most featured South African Blog site in the awards since the beginning? Personally, I would have just been happy to be contacted about COMPETING in the awards in the first place. I'm not asking for special treatment, but as the winner of the Best Overall Blog since inception , you would think I would have been appropriately warned? Rather than my stumbling upon the awards at the last hour, allowing me one day to notify my readers of the nomination process.

What's that smell?

Are you not remotely embarrassed about that, Jon?

I wrote to Jon Cherry a week ago, noting that although I wasn't losing sleep over it, and from a purely marketing perspective, I felt that excluding 2oceansvibe from this year's Best Overall category would look particularly odd and would almost certainly effect the awards' credibility. The ever confident (smug?) Cherry told me that he did consider it but they went ahead anyway.

Jon Cherry went on in the Sunday Times to say that the voting system had been improved on last year's system where only the public voted and "pure popularity" was the determining factor. Well we wouldn't want that now, would we, Jon? A blog site actually winning because it was the most popular!

Equally bizarre, this year's nomination process finds the presence of a 'comments section' under each post as something very important for blogs to be nominated. It's a terrible coincidence that 2oceansvibe doesn't have and never has had comments.

Yes, it's all rather sinister. Why are you and your goblins so determined to not let 2oceansvibe win? Our popularity wasn't created out of thin air - the website has been going solidly since 2002 and this is the result. Shame on you - angry little people.

The word 'cronyism' is explained on Wired Gecko, as Paul discusses The Controversial 2007 Blog Awards. It's a good article, check it out. The definition, by the way, is "partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to public office without regard for their qualifications".

You guys went too far and would always shout "sour grapes" if anything was said. But now look, you're in the Sunday Times being punished for rigging the judging panel. Very emboerrissing, guys.

It really is a pity, these awards were a ball hair away from being established.

And please, if 2oceansvibe wins any trophies on the awards night (if you're HONESTLY gong to go ahead with it), you can keep them - they clearly mean more to you.

Seth Rotherham
Editor
2oceansvibe.com
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UPDATE:

The following was sent in by The English US PR Guy :

Seth,

It's a conspiracy. It's like the real nerds won't accept you, because you're cool. It reminds me of when the geeks at school refused to let me play Dungeons and Dragons with them. Allegedly because I would 'muck about.'  I actually REALLY wanted to play and would have taken it seriously. The geeks knew this, but they also knew that their ability to exclude me was the only slender piece of power any of those trolls would have over me in ten long years at boarding school.

So I hid the Player's handbook and threw away the 20 sided dice.

C*nts.

Not that I'm bitter about it.