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Wizbang: 2003 Weblog Award Nominees Archives
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December 24, 2003

Grumblings

I really haven't commented on the fallout from the 2003 Weblog Awards.

One particular column by Steve Outing at Poynteronline did irk me. In it he bemoans the design quality of blogs focusing on the Best Looking Blog category.

First these were open nominations. Gnome-girl and I tried to pick a representative top 20 from the numerous nominations, knowing full well that there were probably better sites out their among the millions of blogs.

Second, no one is getting rich making visually appealing weblogs. The site owners in the poll design for their own enjoyment or hire blog designers to give them as much flair as their limitted budgets can afford. Here I know what of I speak. Ask Robyn and Stacy at Sekimori. I worked with them in the redesign at SportsBlog, which turned out marvelous. We had numerous exchanges in regards to ideas for the site design compared to the "professional" sites like ESPN, CBS Sportsline, FOXSports, etc. Those sites were developed for 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars. SportsBlog was constrained to a budget of hundreds of dollars. Comparing one to the other is an apples to oranges comparison.

Finally, this wouldn't have anything to do with Romensko's eighth place finish in the Best Media/Journalism Blog would it? Romensko and Poynteronline are synonymous.

By the way Orange Haired Boy found this humorous Japenese translation of the Ecosystem categories.

Hat Tip: Arguing With Signposts

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 01:56 AM | Comments (5) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (2)
Arguing with signposts... linked with Steve Outing replies
Chuck's Blogumentary linked with WEBLOG AWARDS HUBUB

December 15, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards - Winners

2003 Weblog Awards

Based on over 63,000 votes cast during the ten days polls were open (12/5/2003 -12/14/2003), here are the 22 winners of 2003 Weblog Awards. Congratulations!

Best Overall Blog

Little Green Footballs


Best New Blog (Established in 2003)

Allah Is In The House


Best Group Blog

The Volokh Conspiracy


Best Foreign Blog

Merde In France
Merde In France


Best Humor Blog

Allah Is In The House


Best Looking Blog

Snazzy Kat
Snazzy Kat


Best Female Authored Blog (tie)

Meryl Yourish   Asymmetrical Information


Best Liberal Blog

Michael J. Totten


Best Conservative Blog

Hugh Hewitt


Best Media/Journalist Blog

Opinion Journal (Best Of The Web by James Taranto)
Opinion Journal (Best Of The Web by James Taranto)


Best Ecosystem Higher Beings & Mortal Humans Blog

James Lileks
James Lileks


Best Ecosystem Playful Primates Blog

Citizen Smash
Citizen Smash


Best Ecosystem Large Mammals Blog

damnum absque injuria


Best Ecosystem Marauding Marsupials Blog

Patterico's Pontifications


Best Ecosystem Adorable Rodents Blog

Yale Diva


Best Ecosystem Flappy Birds Blog

Busy Mom Blog


Best Ecosystem Slithering Reptiles Blog

Buddha's Den


Best Ecosystem Crawly Amphibians Blog

Tasty Manatees


Best Ecosystem Flippery Fish Blog

Sweetness Follows


Best Ecosystem Slimy Molluscs (and below) Blog

Jozjozjoz
Jozjozjoz


Most Egregious Omission

Not A Fish

Winners logo's and HTML code will be available here Tuesday. The poll page will remain in place so you may continue to link to it and the results. The content of this post will be copied into the header section of the poll page as well.

Thanks to everyone who participated, those who have sent well wishes, and especially Michele, Cheyenne, and the King for their assistance.

I'll try to recap the though process behind the design and operation of the awards at some point in the next few days. The participation in terms of nominations and voting has been amazing. There were lessons learned along the way that will make next years Weblog Awards even better.

I think most people liked the idea of competing against sites from the same TTLB Ecosystem level, but I think for next year we are going to need some better "awards show" names for those categories. I'm open to suggestions...

Text Listing Of the Winners:

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 10:52 AM | Comments (9) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (32)
BoiFromTroy linked with Southern Cal dominates...
Electric Venom linked with A Dubious Distinction
AlphaPatriot linked with Belated Congrats...
Mind of Mog linked with 2003 Weblog Awards: Vote Now
Signifying Nothing linked with While We Were Sleeping II: The Two Towers
Buddha's Den linked with My Thanks....to you the people...
srah blah blah linked with We're #2! We're #2!
drowning at 2 feet sea level linked with Around the 'Sphere
swirlspice linked with I am not a loser. I am NOT a loser.
Unscrewing The Inscrutable linked with Ah, Good Times, Good Times
Resonance linked with Concession and Congratulations
Resonance linked with Concession and Congratulations
www [dot] margilowry [dot] com linked with It's an honor just to be nominated
Life's Like This linked with ...and the winners are *drumroll*
PrestoPundit.com linked with http://www.hayekcenter.org/prestopunditarchive/002161.html

December 14, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards - Polls Closed

2003 Weblog Awards

Polls are closed and vote totals in all categories are being reviewed. Since there have already been adjustments in some categories, hold off on claims of victory until I give the official results. A winners announcement post will follow either this evening or tomorrow morning.

The poll page will remain in place, and everyone sees only the vote totals. You can link to the results of a poll using the permalink icon.

Thanks to all for the overwhelming support and participation.

Posted by Kevin at 08:22 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (2)
Matthew J. Stinson | weblog linked with Blog award polling has ended
The American Mind linked with TAM Lost

December 12, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards - Stretch Run

2003 Weblog Awards

Most races are too close to call. Even the Best Overall Blog category, where LGF holds a strong lead, isn't immune to a well timed mention from the competition.

Voting closes Sunday.

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 02:40 AM | Comments (7) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (1)
apropos of something linked with Around the blogosphere

December 11, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards - Procedures

2003 Weblog Awards


Polls for the 2003 Weblog Awards close Sunday December 14. Winners will be announced December 15.

Why the delay? I am checking logs for excessive voting patterns regularly, but I'd rather make the adjustments all at once. I appreciate the efforts of all the contestants to guide their readers to proper participation, but regardless of how hard we all try there will always be some who try to spoil the fun. Fear not, it's trivially easy for me to spot the excessive voting. How to address these votes (which will be discarded) midway through the polling is a thornier issue. There are three ways I can handle this:

  1. Make the adjustment, and hope I remember that I made the adjustment when I look through the logs again once the polls close. I'm worried, frankly, that I will forget that I already adjusted the vote totals downward and mistakenly do it again. There are 21 different polls to keep up with.

  2. Make the adjustment(s) then clear the logs. This way there is no chance that I would have the problem described above, but I loose the existing vote logs for that poll. I really don't want to keep checkmarking the logs in this way. I would like to keep the logs intact until the polls close.

  3. Note the adjustments, leave the logs in place, then adjust the totals when the polls close. This allows me to keep the logs and make all the adjustments at one time.
Option 3 is the one I'm going with. I'm sorry if this is not an optimal solution, but I will try to note the polls where corrections are to be applied.

See the update below...

Others will surely be added. I will notify these sites by mail and include a copy of the relevant portion of the log if requested. Please refrain from spiteful name calling between sites over this issue because:

  1. Unless the blogger did it themselves (highly unlikely) they really have no control over it.

  2. You could be the next on the list.
As to the declaration of winners, where the vote total is exceedingly close I reserve the right to declare co-winners.

Update: I changed my mind. I am going to apply the corrections to date. I found a way to preserve the logs offline.

The following vote totals have decreased by the amount indicated based on vote abuse.

Best Conservative Blog
Hewitt (151)
Misha (150)

Best Marauding Marsupials Ecosystem Level Blog
the cheese stands alone (35)

Best Flappy Birds Ecosystem Level Blog
Quibles And Bits (22)
Agroves (52)
Exultate Justi (53)

Best Group Blog
Powerline (150)
Rantburg (650)

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 01:59 AM | Comments (6) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (3)
Citizen Smash - The Indepundit linked with Final Push for Votes
the cheese stands alone under the mistletoe linked with Pissed
Patterico's Pontifications linked with CHEESE OVERTAKES STILL TRAILS PATTERICO

December 09, 2003

Where's Kottke.org?

2003 Weblog Awards

Jason Kottke has asked to be removed from the running from the Best Overall Blog category. The reason I honored his request is that there were voting issues with 4 blogs (of which his was one) on Saturday. Those issues have since been fixed, but I decided that if any of the 4 ever wanted out I would honor their request.

That's it, I'm done removing people from the contest. Don't bother asking.

Posted by Kevin at 01:04 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (0)

2003 Weblog Awards - Most Egregious Omission

2003 Weblog Awards


One last category was added based on nominations made in this post.

Vote in the category: Most Egregious Omission

Nominees:


Ambient Irony
American Digest
angelweave
The Belmont Club
Captain's Quarters
DFMoore
DizzyGirl
Not A Fish
The People's Republic of Seabrook
Jennifer's History And Stuff
Backcountry Conservative
JustOneMinute
The Laughing Wolf
Liquid Courage
Voodoo Lounge
Molotov Cocktail Frank
Possumblog
Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Dodgeblogium
Clear Lake Reflections
Econpundit
On The Fritz
Gnome-girl
Halley's Comment
Juan Cole
Not Me
PardonMyEnglish
QandO
SnoozeButtonDreams
wackyfun dot net
Twilight Cafe

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 01:35 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (1)
Dizzy Girl linked with A Glaring Error Times Deux!

December 08, 2003

Get Your Buttons

Michele at A Small Victory, who graciously provided all of the graphics for the 2003 Weblog Awards, is Photoshopping up a storm of custom buttons. Nothing says "vote for me" or "don't vote for that other site" better than a personalized logo.

2003 Weblog Awards

Update: The Most Egregious Omission category will be up in a few hours.

Posted by Kevin at 09:10 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (0)

December 07, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards Support

Use this post to ask questions or notify me of problems.

Click the graphic below to enter the polls.

2003 Weblog Awards

If you are having trouble voting try refreshing you browser; many times that fixes the problem. If you are having problems with extended poll lockout, use this
link to reset your counters. Abuse will get you banned.

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 09:39 AM | Comments (10) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (1)
Who Tends the Fires linked with Cast your votes, folks!

December 06, 2003

Cheaters

2003 Weblog Awards

Never prosper. I know who it is and it's been fixed.

If you think it will help your favorite site by padding votes or hacking you are wrong. I'll be lopping off the cheaters votes and banning addresses. I am watching the vote logs and zapping cheaters votes.

Yesterday I saw the rise in Lessig, LGF, and Scripting News and figured they were moving together. This was not exactly the case.

Scripting News rocketed up 5000 votes in short order. I combed through the Scripting News vote logs and didn't initially see any issues. It appeared that LGF and Lessig fans tried to match the Scripting News gains illicitly. Lessig, LGF, and Kottke were all docked due to heavy vote fraud from individual address. Lessing (5K), LGF (3K), Kottke (500).

That was not the end of the story. Checking the referral logs showed where all the Scripting News votes were coming from. He benefited from some underground hacking games and did not earn the votes I though he had. He wasn't involved, but I found the little twerps who where doing it. There were lots of other mirrors like memepool.com who were carrying similar code.

Pete Holiday was able to come up with some code to block the kind of direct link "magic" vote fraud that was happening. Things should run smoother now. Serious thanks to Pete!!!

The moral of the story is earn your votes the old fashion way: beg for them.

Update: There are 19 categories (if I remember correctly) and the voting problems have only occurred in the Best Overall Blog category and only with the sites mentioned. The illicit votes have been removed and the poll code has been modified to disable the cheating. None of the other polls were affected.

In the Best Overall Blog category all of the aforementioned sites are aware of the situation, and none of them are encouraging people to game the system. With the vote totals corrected and the polls more secure the contest will continue. It turns out that I don't have to guess about totals when removing votes.

Some have called for the contest to end. To this I say "no". Aside from wanting to stage a competition, I also wanted to give non A-list bloggers a chance to get some new readers at their sites. Numerous sites (even when complaining about the Weblog Awards) say that they've found some new blogs of interest in the Weblog Awards.

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 07:59 PM | Comments (60) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (14)
Patterico's Pontifications linked with MORE PROOF THAT HUMANS WILL CHEAT AT ANYTHING
American Digest linked with Cheating Continues at Wizbang
PoliBlog linked with Cheaters Never Prosper
The Blog Herald linked with Cheating blights Wizbang awards
Weblog Hype linked with Not worth that much
dcthornton.com linked with 2003 Weblog Awards
American Digest linked with Blog Cheating Gets a Pass at Wizbang
One Fine Jay linked with Shooting fish
Burningbird linked with Blogger Strike
Amish Tech Support linked with The problem with online polls
An Unsealed Room linked with Weblog Awards: We are a Competitive Species....
Captain's Quarters linked with Last Chance at Weblog Awards
Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' linked with I just can't bear to watch
Matthew J. Stinson | weblog linked with Poll positions

By Popular Demand: Most Egregious Omission Poll

I told you when push came to shove there were going to be some bruised egos. Did you listen? Sadly no...

You whined, you cried, you ranted, etc. Well it worked, sort of...

Here is your final chance to make your case as to why your omission from the 2003 Weblog Awards was the most heinous miscarriage of justice since The Holy Roller or The Immaculate Reception.

One final category will go up for voting on Monday night - Most Egregious Omission

Rules:

If you are listed in any of the polls you are ineligible.

Just because you blog exists does not automatically qualify it as an egregious omission. You need to explain why your omission is such a glaring oversight. Humor and creativity will be rewarded; pettiness and whining will not. The process of choosing the final 20 will be subjective. I've got 5 sites on my list already so you're fighting for the other 15.

Have at it...

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 03:40 PM | Comments (34) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (8)
OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY linked with POLI-PRIMATE
Jennifer's History and Stuff linked with Weblog Awards
brainstorming linked with 2003 Weblog Awards
Random Fate linked with It's a blogger Oscar!
Captain's Quarters linked with Last Chance at Weblog Awards
Matthew J. Stinson | weblog linked with Poll positions
Blog o'RAM linked with Blog it Forward
One Fine Jay linked with Quackmire!

December 05, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards Open

Voting for all categories is now open. You can vote in each category once every 12 hours. Polls close Dec. 14.

Every nominated site in every poll can be visited by clicking on the site name (site opens in a new window). If you are not familiar with all the nominees take a look at them before voting.

Click the graphic below to enter the polls.

2003 Weblog Awards


If you want to show the link at your site:

Please be kind save the graphic to your server and update the code......

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 12:41 PM | Comments (6) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (19)
Alive and Bloggin' linked with Go vote already!
Signifying Nothing linked with It's an honor just to be nominated
The Southern California Law Blog linked with Weblog Award Voting Opens
The Southern California Law Blog linked with Weblog Award Voting Opens
Mind of Mog linked with 2003 Weblog Awards: Vote Now
Israeli Guy linked with Trackbacks
Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' linked with Punch all the way through your ballot
apropos of something linked with Rock the Vote: The 2003 Weblog Awards
Absinthe & Cookies (a little bit bitter, a little bit sweet) linked with Blog The Vote
danandsherree.com linked with danandsherree.com isn't in the 2003 Weblog Award Polls
Citizen Smash - The Indepundit linked with 2003 Weblog Awards
Insults Unpunished linked with Vote Early And Often. Well, At Least Early.
BushBlog linked with BushBlog is up for an award!
Overtaken by Events linked with Fight for your Right
Daniel W. Drezner linked with A (modest) step up from the Grammies

December 04, 2003

Serious Thanks!

Turns out that out of the thousands of comments and messages about the 2003 Weblog Awards there were three special people who asked the magic question, "do you need any help?"

Big thanks to Cheyenne (aka Gnomegirl) provided invaluable assistance in culling through the nominiees in the Best Looking Blog and Best Female Authored Blog.

Thanks also to Michele for her graphics and support.

And even more thanks to The King Of Fools for help culling through the nominees in the Ecosystem categories.

Turns out that we will get this beast off the ground tomorrow with the help of these nice folks. I'm filling out the posts and polls, check back tomorrow for the start times. My thought is that running the poll through December 14th should long enough.

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 11:54 PM | Comments (6) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (0)

December 03, 2003

2003 Weblog Awards Update

The number of nominations is staggering. While this is a good thing, it means there will most certainly be sites that are passed over for inclusion.

Any contest of this sort has not gone without some level of controversy. All I can say is that I'm trying to do this with as much "sunshine" into the process as possible. Even if you are violently opposed to the concept you can use this as an opportunity to see new parts of the blog universe by looking through the nominating comments.

Good news! Michele made a logo for the Weblog Awards. I'll be adding a textarea box later today so you can link to the polls with a little cut and pasting of HTML.

award.jpg

And finally... POLLS OPEN FRIDAY.

show comments right here »


Posted by Kevin at 09:42 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (7)
Blog o'RAM linked with Silence of the
Bloviating Inanities linked with Squeaky Wheel
The S-Train Canvass linked with Nominated? ME?!?!
Israellycool linked with My Rant for the Day
Radio Free Blogistan linked with Get your tux ready : 2003 Weblog Awards
the typepadistas directory linked with Wizbang: 2003 Weblog Awards Update
Practical Penumbra linked with ...three shall be the number...