I wouldn't link Daily Kos. Those asses played dirty, as usual. The last thing they deserve is another link. After all, this is what Kos posted:

"let's win this thing and get some increased exposure, traffic and ad revenue for Kos"

I think that anyone who gets people to cheat on behalf of their blog should have their nomination withdrawn; why send traffic to, and risk giving a win to, cheaters?

Anyone know how many lawyers they have on the ground?

For the record.

It amazes me that someone would take this contest so seriously to rig it. Further, it amazes me that someone would be so selfish and inconsiderate to ruin it for the players and the vested planners.

Sorry, Kevin.

As an aside, I wouldn't mind someone cheating on my behalf...at least to get me to 5th place...hehe...

It 'pears some sites are jes' bein' a bit too liberal with their ethics in this contest.

So, Kevin didn't lock his doors. This justifies burglary?

And to think that these same people dare to accuse others of electoral perfidy. They demonstrate what they think proper to do with elections, while projecting onto their opponents their utter lack of decency.

Ok, where to start.

First, this is the absolute height of hypocrisy(I don't think I need to explain any further than that).

Secondly, if I were running the Weblog awards, I would disqualify KoS for cheating.

Thirdly, if I were a liberal blog, I would denounce KoS completely.

In conclusion, I think there should be a blogosphere equivialent of sanctions placed upon KoS.

I would Email said "paid advertisements" they recieve and attempt to convince them to withdraw their support. I highly doubt any respectable company would want to support such hypocritical clients.

I'm shocked, and surprised at this. It shows that not every blog is above board and honest in it's comings and goings.

I've always viewed the Blogosphere as an intelligent, and honest entity. With that in mind, just because someone believes in something, runs with the story, and then it turns out to be false doesn't make them dishonest. That just means they were wrong.

What has happened with this years Weblog awards shows out and out dishonesty, disrespect, and disregard for how the blogosphere is viewed by ALL.

Most of all, Kevin should be greatly hurt by these actions. He spends his time and effort setting something up for the entire Blogosphere, which I imagine is a LOT of people. To turn around and do this? Bad, bad, bad.

Disqualify Kos! Kos delenda...oh, sorry. Got carried away for a second there.

Seriously, though. I say remove Kos from consideration. Sure, it's just a fun award process, but one shouldn't have to cheat.

Look, if the awards are going to have any legitamacy, you really are going to have to disqualify Daily Kos and other blatant cheaters. Also if you don't, you are opening up yourself to this kinda trash.

Well, now we have proof at how bad Daily Kos is, as if we needed it.

What an arse. Fine example of how not to blog. Fine example of other qualities already highlighted above (other comments). Did Target fire the executive who stopped the Salvation Army bell ringers from gathering Christmas donations in front of their stores? And is he now working for Kos? Bozo lives, Bozo is real. Believe.

Kevin, sorry that your attempt to do something to fun and good-spirited for the blogosphere (predictably, in retrospect) blew up. Clearly you made the mistake of assuming you were dealing with grown-ups.

OTOH, this little morality play shows the importance of you and others do in your "day-jobs" as chaperones keeping an eye on the people for whom stealing elections is justified by the prospect of losing them.

A sad statement, but nothing these left-wing brats could do would surprise me at this point.

FWIW, thanks for all the work involved. There are blogs I've never heard of and you've made it as easy as a click to check them out. Since I figure exposure is the real point of the contest, as far as I'm concerned you've succeeded.

The same stunts they pulled in Ukraine. Sorry your efforts were spoiled.

What several commenters are saying here is what I thought when I followed the link Nikita Demosthenes has been fervently plastering all over the blogosphere: Kos should be disqualified outright.

I would assume, however, that the line for such a penalty would be drawn well short of my tongue-in-cheek offer of a solid gold Porsche to anyone who votes for me.

Besides, said offer doesn't seem to have been getting me anywhere, except out of last place...

Someone metioned sponsors.

It might not hurt to point out that if they are willing to do this to boost their supposed prestige, then perhaps they are not above fixing their number of hits to convince advertisers they are getting a better deal than the truth would support?

I think many here are missing the point though. It was NOT Kos who advocated the cheating and came up with the way to work around the system. It was one of his readers and commenters. In fact, the entry was in a Kos Diary which are written by random people.

Still personally I'd kick his site out of competition, however we shouldn't villify Kos for this. I believe his "screw em" comment does that enough.

- Repost -

- Actually theres a very simple solution to all of this. Quiet down now kids. Remember what the teacher does with the child that needs attention to such a desperate degree they can't control themselves. He/She generally gives them what they want via absolute isolation, while at the same time letting their "issues" speak loud and clear to the rest of the class....

- Simply generate a new "Best of the Cheats" and move Kos over to it all by themselves.... Done and done.... Call it "Potty training for liberal/Marxists by shotgun"....

- Its inescapable that the whole freeking ambush is for that purpose. Kos is even ecouraging his adelpated asshat brigade to post the most inflamitory comments as possible, encouraging even more visits by angering people who are goaded into responding. He wants to give the MSM the impression he's King of the hill and the only serious blogsite in the whole community. We help him in that endeavor if we fall for his marketing ploy....If the asshat gang want to be "victims" of their own lying and cheating we should do everything we can to ostrasize them from the blogoshere. Thats what you do with dimwits that can't work and play well with others.....

- Isolate him and then turn your backs on him and he'll go fucking batty having been "outed". Don't fall for his bullshit Kevin. We're better than that....

- Just a thought.....

Copy of Comments I posted in later thread, having only now found this earlier thread, more specifically about this issue of voting integrity:

KEVIN, A SUGGESTION:

Is there anyway that you could relaunch the voting process?

The Awards now have received more publicity -- albeit some of it not of the appreciable sort -- and perhaps you could devise some process for the Awards voting that would actually require one logon and one only or, rather, some account process for each vote/voter?

I know that you and others far more knowledgeable than I am would be able to comprehend something along these lines, or, not, but, it's an idea.

If you need hosting, just ask, I'd be happy to donate more services, resources, if needed if there was some extra proces that could be enabled for the voting process this year, such that the Awards could better avoid the denigration that *some users* seem intent upon.

I realize that LittleGreenFootballs and Wizbang are not the general Liberal cup'o'tea -- KOS is certainly not mine -- but all politics aside, if people among the left (that means KOS as motivator in this case) are so willing to amplify dishonest results in the voting process simply to be awarded "best of" (compared with LGF that is actually far more popular to many internet readers and for very good reasons), then shouldn't that "nominee" be removed from the process altogether?

I don't know about others but my single opinion here is that KOS has disqualified his site from the Awards considerations by suggesting dishonest voting.

Meanwhile, had KOS never made such a suggestion -- I consider him hosting the information on his site as authoring the suggestion, since he hasn't taken any means to remove or modify or even caution others about the information nor declare that he as a site/author disagrees with the practice -- that represents to my view that the site/author is certainly NOT qualified to be considered or awarded "Best of", in ANY category.

But, as to modifying the voting process, even if it reduces overall voting participants, it seems that one vote per individual is more than usual, it's expected and that people who misuse the process should be disqualified. Either site, Nominee, Finalist and/or voter.

Posted by: -S- at December 5, 2004 03:39 PM

If Kos had any honor, he'd request that his blog be removed from the runnings due to the misdeeds of his followers.

Oh, and I love the other comments that are supporting and justifying this cheating:

"You aren't hacking a vote, are you? ;-) (none / 1)

What an un-American thing to do! (unless you're a Republican contractor "counting" votes)"

"user-agent header (none / 0)

You should also be forging the User-Agent header: maybe one for MSIE would be appropriate. :)"

"Or choose randomly from a list each time (none / 0)

so that it looks genuine--but they've caught on anyway, so it doesn't really matter now. You are probably getting a lifetime ban from them. Wear it as a badge of honor."

"Maybe (none / 0)

It depends on whether you're cheating to win or fixing to vote to show that the people who wrote the script are incompetent."

"I would agree with you if (4.00 / 2)

this wasn't a wingnut website trying to boost there ego's by wining all the categories.

All he did was mess with a poorly designed poll that we never would have won anyway. He even admitted to doing this on their website."

"Actually (4.00 / 2)

he just showed how DAMNED easy it is to Freep elections over the internet. Besides, nothing we say OR do is going to change what people on LGF think of us. Why not mess with them?"

"give me a break (4.00 / 3)

Oh give me a break.

* The poll was done by a right wing site and had a "Micheal Moore hates America" ad on the sidebar!
* Their methodology was horrible! The rules specifiy that you can vote once a day and they advertised on the right-wing sites. This was not a legit poll to begin with!
* I wasn't secretive about messing with their poll, as I took no steps to hide what I was trying to do.
* I didn't think they were stupid enough to code a web poll where this kind of thing would work. If they want to make a web poll, it's not hard to prevent this stuff. "

"Gave you a four (none / 0)

Death to the meaningless online poll!!! You got a four because that thuglican poll site's pique was precious. You rock!"

And so on and so forth. Unsurprising to say the least.

More proof that Liberalism has devolved into a mental disorder...

Well, if nothing else, this will kill any thought about having Presidential elections involving internet voting.

Thank God.
-=Mike