I can't begin to describe how angry I am.

In 10 years, these are the days that those of us who are serious about this new media will look back on and, using technology that probably hasn't been imagined yet, wax poetically about the "good old days."

Kevin is a visionary...one of those who sees the potential of this new medium and, like a gardener planting a new seedling, has spent an inordinate amount of time and effort in nurturing, encouraging, and caring for his charge.

The awards are not the issue here. It is the corruption of one man's labor of love...the lack of compassion and empathy on the part of people who've laid claim to those words and wave them in front of our faces as proof of their moral superiority every chance they get.

It is the worst kind of hypocrisy...one that Dante reserved a special level in hell for; where hypocrites were punished because their crimes destroyed something pure, something good.

I have no suggestions on what can or should be done...only scorn for those who've proven themselves to be unworthy of rememberance or accolades.

Damn them all...

Mom Tea was a wise lady... wonder what Mom Kos taught her kids...

-m

God, how lame.

The best thing about the awards is finding new blogs that I wasn't aware of yet. This takes the spirit of the awards and dumps it in the crapper.

Kos is big enough that his fans shouldn't need to stuff the box to win. Play fair, and enjoy the competition!

If Kevin had had asked around, he could have implemented a much more secure solution.

BTW, it can STILL be gamed. All one needs is Firefox (again) and one extension that I shall not name.

The whole thing is worthless. It started off as a "Who does Kevin personally think is popular and cool" contest, now it's a "who can cheat the fastest" contest.

Cut your losses. Stop until you can implement a system that defeats cheaters.

Imagine how the US presidential election would work if everyone that voted were given a '"CARD" when they voted that said they had voted, and it was their individual responsibility to keep the "CARD". If the next time they come in to vote they had lost their "CARD" they were allowed to vote again and simply given another "CARD" so that their voting could be tracked.

This is pretty much how "COOKIES" work. I think I've lost my cookies over this.

Jesus Christ is nothing Sacred?

The purpose of blogging is to strip away the arrogance and elitism of the MSM and return editorial control and the flow of information back to the consumer.

In blogging, the real vote by the consumer is readership and the real vote by the blogger is the link. Engaging in such vain activities such as some farcical election to establish some sort of award tradition will only plant the seeds for blogging's eventual corruption and downfall, similar to the process of decay and intellectual stagnation that the MSM is suffering from.

The only good this process serves is to expose the corruption in the blogopshere (aka the script-kiddies that cling to Kos's site like iciles off of a statue's balls) and to afford the opportunity to discredit and shun the corrupting influences.

On another note, the next time that a reporter throws out Kos as an example of a high-profile blogger or mentions Kos in the results of this ballot, maybe they should ask him why he hasn't denounced such ballot-corrupting activity instead of tossing more logs into the furious chiminea of his ego.

For the record, I was just able to vote, get the 24 hour lockout, change some things I was doing, and vote again 10 more times.

It's still not even close to secure. You need a CAPTCHA system in addition to the IP and cookie security.

I understand Mr. Simon's criticism, while not agreeing with it. It's sort of like the arguments I heard about Rock n' Roll while I was growing up; to sell out or keep the genre "pure?"

If Kevin were offering money or a trip to Tahiti to the winners, I would agree with Mr. Simon. But he's not, is he? All he's offering is exposure for a large number of blogs that I've never heard of.

More than 25 years ago, I was a struggling, starving actor in New York. Let me tell you something I learned about that experience; if talent alone determined who was successful, there are many "stars" today who'd be selling aluminum siding and lots of "tin men" making millions and having women crawling all over them.

More often than not it's luck...the fortuitousness to be in the right place at the right time. And while blogging SHOULD be an endeavor for fun and NOT profit, part of that fun is ego-boosting recognition. If we're ever to get to the desirable point that Mr. Simon advocates, everything possible should be done to encourage real talent.

Like off-broadway "Showcase" productions (where new talent was paraded before agents, producers, and directors and run by people with EXACTLY the same attitude as Mr. Aylward) these awards serve a useful purpose. I only hope that this experience won't discourage Mr. Aylward or others from continuing this project in future years.

We all constantly hear how Kos gets an amazing number of hits per day (I personally wonder how this can be). Maybe, we are now getting a hint of how this is happening. I am in no way technically knowledgable enough to know if this can be done, but why can't it? Perhaps, the the same persons who are using automated procedures to "stuff" the ballot box are using the same type of "bots" to hit on Kos' blog. Wouldn't it be a real laugh if Kos' daily traffic was only 1/100 of what he claims? Anyway, just some food for thought!!!

Jay 'ol buddy, those are the 2004 Weblog Awards.

Paul:

Doh!

DAMN Logitech for putting the "3" and "4" right NEXT TO EACH OTHER on my keyboard...

Going in to fix that right now, thanks.

But for the record: I had nothing to do with the 2003 awards, either.

J.

Doesn't anyone see the irony here?

Rigged election? Muwahahahahahahaha

Simon: the script-kiddies that cling to Kos's site like iciles off of a statue's balls... LMAO!

If these were my awards, I'd just say fuck em and delete them from the voting lineup... what a bunch of jackasses...

1.) Ballot cheating is the gateway to Weblog Awards cheating.

2.) Since Kos announced that winning this award would increase his ad revenues, it is fraud.

3.) I would have allowed them to cheat. Then I would have disqualifed him when the final tallies were announced.

4.) I'm an AOL user, you snob!

JAY, I compared you to the drummer with Green Day -- isn't that enough to prove my idealism where you are concerned?! What else will it take, man?!?

But, about these Awards, as with the earliest tip o' the liberal iceberg attempting to sink the process when my logo was/is maligned because I, a conservative, created it (but nothing else academically, it seems that the motivation behind the criticism by some about the logo is based upon personal invective about me because I created the logo, and that I'm a conservative, someone who voted for Bush, so that means everything I've drawn, who I am, all of it is denigratable to some, particularly a few manic French/Danish MAC users -- so far, I'm mystified if they're so upset because I use a DELL and not a MAC, or, that I'm "anglo saxon" (compared to what?, I haven't a clue), that I voted for Bush, that I'm American, what, it's all combined in one big diss-fest by certain liberals about the logo and about me as designer of it, so I conclude it's simply liberal politics once again migrating into academics without further attention to specific points other than emotionally charged liberalism disdaining "all threats" to liberalism).

Anyway, the criticism of the Awards process and attempt to skewer the results, as with election forecasting months and months (and months) in the past, is motivated in my view based upon liberal politics. They attempt to make "design" about being a liberal versus being a conservative, and all the rest that goes with it, and are, once again, attempting to distort public opinion inorder to force public opinion to support their politics.

KOS has just finally proven that he has never, as in, never, had any balance where information is concerned. If it matters any, I think his site looks awful and always have, much less what's written on it, such that, I never visit his site. Sometimes some people just overassume their ability to sway the public, and I believe that KOS has finally come through, at least more clearly now, as the drum-major waving a giant weenie instead of a wand. Ha, I said they (critics of the logo based upon their emotionalism) were wankers, and, you know, they really are.

- 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....

- 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....

- 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.....

Wait, I just had the misfortune of actually visiting that link to KOS you provide here, and I read that he writes that "you can vote once every 24 hours" as advice (motivation) to readers.

So, he's outright asking people to go cheat?

You know what? I voted once two days ago, the afternoon of the first day that the voting began.

And then I departed the Weblog voting process.

As in, I cast one vote per Category (I skipped two Categories because I didn't have an opinion about the Finalists listed -- believe it was Best of No.######### or thereabouts), but I voted once for Categories I had an opinion about and then left afterward.

As in, IT NEVER OCCURED TO ME TO VOTE MORE THAN ONCE on or for anyone, any Category, any site.

KOS is over there leading people (which is why I equate him with a drum-major waving a weaner instead of a wand) into mulitple voting in the Awards, into CHEATING?!?

I realize that there's no iron clad Awards restriction as to voting multiple times; however, it's a matter of public conscience, that you cast a vote and that the vote represents your opinion.

Voting mulitple times just ridicules the process and attempts to diminish the process of the Awards altogether. Now that I think about it, that's apparently what KOS intends: to diminish the Awards process altogether (motivating people to vote in multiples, and for HIM/KOS).

If ANYone ever doubted or questioned liberal ethics -- an oxymoron at this point to my view -- then let them access KOS and see that in action: "vote early and often" is the motto of the dishonest, crude and corrupt.

BTW....I like to think of it as "Potty training for liberals/Marxists by shotgun"....
- A trip over to LGF and the constant flaming going on there by LLL trolls exposes the whole leftard campaign and goals. they're sneaky bastards....tried to pull LGF into the mess by phony postings that LGF people were fighting back using the same script....muddying the waters....total BS..... These titweasles deserve the best ostracizing we can manage.....If they want to be "poor victims" of their lying cheating ideology I say we do all we can to help them be outcasts from the blogoshere.....

Suzy, to my everlasting shame, I DID forget about the "Green Day" thing. I warmed me tremendously. In fact, the only thing that would have been more satisfying was if I could ID a single Green Day song. But that's on me.

All is forgiven on my end. I am deeply ashamed and remorseful for ever doubting.

And very, very eloquently put. I felt awkward even voting once, because of the APPEARANCE of impropriety because of my status here. It's also partially why I don't participate much in the caption contests any more.

But that's just us. We're hopelessly crippled by such outdated concepts as honor and honesty propriety and the like. We're obsolete.

Care to join me for a refreshing dip in this tar pit, m'dear?

J.

This calls to mind something the Nixon crowd once called 'rat=f##king for things they did to rig elections while still in college. After they'd acheived REAL power and position, they didn't change their MO.

This is not some mild annoyance. It bespeaks the mentality of those practicing these methods. They WILL cheat to win, for the trivial AND the important. It's what they do.

Like the con man who feels no compunction at duping the 'dumb' mark, these folks have no compunctions about perverting social conventions that provide for peacability among us. They use the people's trust against them, destroying that trust and, then, blatantly brag about.

These are not 'good' people who made a mistake. Their willingness to abuse the traits that keep a society together, for even negligible gains, exposes their meanness.

Here's a thought; allow all the cheaters to vote for Kos, then move it to a new category called "Most Immoral Blog" or something less flattering... and then hand him the win.

I also noticed, in my perusal of the comments, that Kos himself has not spoken up. He hasn't denounced the cheating, hasn't deleted the script, hasn't renounced the fraudulent votes.

I don't mean to be insulting, but honestly, what makes you think that Kos cares? Or that he even knows that his blog has been placed in the running for awrds from a conservative blog that he's not even remotely involved with? I mean, think about this from his perspective: the man is running the biggest blog in history, he receives at least a couple thousand comments per day, and you're asking him to read all of those comments and be responsible for the actions of all of his users. That's simply ridiculous, and no blogger should be expected to take up such a responsibility.

If you want to blame the few Kos users that perpetrated this, fine. In fact, I would agree with you that what they did is wrong, and they should appreciate Kevin's efforts for puttting this contest together. I'll agree with you there. However, this whole "blame Kos and all the liberals in general" vibe really pisses me off. And I think it's arrogant that you think Kos should answer to you when the actions committed weren't even perpetrated by him.

Wow taz. That's a really smart thing to say. So Kos is so full of himself that he doesn't even know that this blog awards thing is going on because it's run on a conservative blog that is WAAY beneath him. How quaint. That's like saying you've never heard of Michelle Malkin, or LGF, or Instapundit, or......

As for the script thing, you are partially right. For one, Kos is on vacation. The guys that perpatrated this should be banned from the blogosphere for life. Kos should make a statement about this. It would only be fair. I though we were supposed to be better than the politicians? I guess not!

- Taz - Kos himself may be on vacation but I don't believe for an instant he wasn't or hasn't been made aware of this asshat mess by now.... That dog don't hunt..... try again....

- I'm just waiting for some brain dead moonbat to post something to the effect that this was a right-wing conspiracy to make Kos look bad.... "Rove waves" yet again..... bet on it.....

I love the excuses being made in the Daily Kos thread. The primary one seems to be that since there was a way to exploit the voting process, it's okay to do - ESPECIALLY because the person running the poll also runs a completely separate "wingnut" blog. *sigh* The twisted minds of moonbats never cease to amaze and confound.

KOS, isn't that french for asshole??

taz:

I'm not "blaming all Liberals" or what you wrote, close to that. I do blame and recognize liberal 'philosophy' feigning as ethics in this cheat philosophy underway promoted by KOS, that site, and echoed and also promoted by Wampum, as per what Kevin posted in abstract and recap about that.

They are both notoriously liberal sites denigrating this Awards process because (1.) KOS is placed in competition with LittleGreenFootballs, a conservative site in general, a horror to the liberal prejudicial and emotionally driven way of thinking; and, (2.) Kevin authors Wizbang, and is editing/managing the Awards process -- and Wizbang is, apparently, also some sort of stumbling block to liberal mania.

Therefore, the Awards have been (mis)perceived by Liberal spokespersons as being some sort of political process by conservatives to render some sort of indecent something or other to their liberal cause and must be cheated, violated, denigrated but not disregarded, as per what's now being promoted by liberal spokespersons. It's the "attack because I THINK someone littered my third cousins yard five states away" form of committing crimes, "because it's possible, so go, do it" and all.

The Awards were and are just a nominated group of blogs from among many thousands of netizens. I mean, *I am* a conservative but no one sent me cryptic emails in the cover of darkness, asking me to commisserate in overthrowing liberalism and all that is not holy to liberals. There was, to my view and experience, a nominating process by which many thousands of blogs were suggested -- by a lot of liberals, no doubt -- and a lot of old fashioned hard work done by many volunteers (I was not one of those involved in the editing process, however, but merely volunteered and provided the logo design work), but to read liberals' blogs who are decrying the Awards process (and suggesting cheating as a response so that KOS can topple LGF or something like that), they are doing so because they have some (mis)perception that because SOME people are conservatives, that the ENTIRE Awards process is corrupt.

I mean, it's ridiculous, nonsensical reasoning. It also lends a lot of focus to KOS and others similar where no focus would be originally. They make the Awards process about them simply because they've struck out in denigration about the Awards process and the Awards are then blemished, or at least that's what appears to be being attempted by liberal sites and users of those sites (KOS and Wampum and others).

Even I, the designer of the Awards logo, am being denigrated because I'm a conservative. A lotta crumby, very tacky and even stupid naysaying that is the result of someone's emotionally driven paranoia and jealousies and whatever else is in the personality of troubled people who get emotionally upset about a logo design because the designer of the logo is a conservative....which ultimately was written elsewhere about me, that I "was a Bush supporter" (and therefore that I merited the complaints....about the logo I designed...). Makes utterly no sense at all. It's like reading someone's obsessive compulsive lunacy.

BUT, anyway, I suppose the strategy is to complain about each and all aspects of the Awards process to reach some critical mass of complaints about the Awards themselves, by those responsible for this complaining, however unfounded, however irrationally emotionally and inexplicably driven the complaints appear to be.

What I can't figure is, if the Awards are so meaningless and awful to some liberals, to KOS readers and authors especially, then why the heck is that site even working to "win" an Award? I mean, you'd think if what they posit is true, that the Awards are not credible because Kevin's a conservative, the designer of the logo is a conservative (does that even make any SENSE? no, it doesn't, to everyone else), then they wouldn't even want to participate, much less motivate people into voting for them to "win" an Award.

I say that KOS should be immortalized, such as can be, through this Awards process this year, as being responsible for encouraging cheating, for cheating and for the worst possible display of abuse of the internet going. I quite strongly believe that the KOS site should be removed from consideration in the Awards, as should the other (Wampum, if they're listed there) and similar for cheating. Cheat, you lose. I don't think any more mention or hype about KOS, especially, should take place but I DO think that advertisers of that site should take note of the dishonesty being suggested by that site.

You know, for all the academia lauding that liberals are so prone to do, there isn't a university I attended that doesn't have the academic honesty policy in place, such that, you cheat, you get dismissed from college.

So, I find it remarkable that there's a promotion of cheating taken place and underway, even, by liberal authors. The very idea is anathema to me and others, but apparently to liberals, the ends are their means, so cheat away!

Again, academic honesty requires that you suffer penalty of disqualification (expulsion) if you cheat, if you break the ethics required to maintain enrollment. So, cheaters should be booted from this process and others. You cheat, you lose.

Our host makes the coy statement "I don't know" whether or not folks at LGF cheated. How lame. Not only is it clear they cheated, it's clear that cheating was promoted at LGF (see http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13820#c0038) well before it was first promoted at Kos.

Apparently even Aylward knows folks at LGF cheated (even though our host and his ilk are doing their best to sweep that material information under the rug). This is evident in the fact that LGF is one of the blogs that had its counter reset (see http://2004weblogawards.com/archives/000079.php).

Our host also says "Kos has a history of deleting pieces," and refers to a piece of his own that Kos allegedly deleted. The cheat-script was not posted by Kos, but rather by one of his visitors. As far as I know, Kos does not delete posts by his visitors. Someone please enlighten me if they have proof to the contrary.

I think what really pisses people off is that the method posted on Kos was a lot smarter then the method posted (earlier) on L