The fourth annual UU Blog Awards, honoring Unitarian Universalist blogging in 2007, is past its nomination stage and is now in an open voting stage that determines winners in fifteen categories.
I learned about this from a post today in the UU blog Philocrites written by Chris Walton, who blogs using the pseudonym Philocrites. His post tells his readers of the voting, but it is also, unmistakably, a not-terribly-subtle suggestion that these readers link over to the awards site and cast votes for his blog. Anyone can vote. The nominee that gets the most votes in each of the UU Awards's 15 categories is a declared winner. Polls close a minute before midnight, Central Time, on February 15.
The UU Blog Awards are admirable. I wish I had the tech moxie and means to pull together some of the things I see at the UU Blog Awards site for this Blogisattva Awards site.
Still, I am very glad the Blogisattvas have taken the road less travelled, making a determined attempt to honor blogs for merit only -- and decidedly not by a means of open voting that becomes significantly, if not almost wholly, a measure of popularity rather than excellence.
The Blogisattva Awards are determined by a small pool of voters -- excellent buddhobloggers, all -- committed to objectivity and a task of seeking excellence. There's no campaigning.
Campaigning is now brisk for the UU Blog Awards. Ms. Kitty of Ms. Kitty's Saloon and Road Show writes in a post today, "Please consider voting for Ms. Kitty in a few categories! Thanks." The anonymous minister of the blog Peacebang wrote today, "go vote for me as Best Something this year. I put a lot of heart and soul into my blogs and I ain’t gonna lie to ya: it would be nice to be honored with your vote." She then lists her seven nominations. In a post titled "Vote for ... ME!", Minister Debra W. Haffner, in her blog Sexuality and Religion, tells us, "I feel a little silly asking, but if you like what you read here, I hope you'll take a minute to go [to the webpage where votes are cast] and vote!"
