A Piece Of My Mind - JIB Finalists

Cross posted at Baleboosteh - originally posted 2nd May

As many will know, I have been feeling a bit annoyed over the past few days. There have been somethings I have wanted to say. The time has come to say something because it has really been eating away at me.

Batya has posted an article today, which for me is just the tip of the ice burg, you can read it here.

In the article Batya speaks of the difference between blogs with a large base of readers due to lots of friends and family and those who are 'media-based'.

She goes on to say:

"Dry Bones is great, but he has been featured in the Jerusalem Post for decades. He shouldn't be running in JIB Awards against ordinary bloggers, even the megas. The same goes for Tamar Yona of Arutz 7. She's a major radio personality there."


This is the comment I have left on Batya's blog:

"Hi Batya,

I understand where you are coming from and I agree somewhat.

Dry Bones does have a great blog and it is very popular.

Tamar Yonah however, may be a 'major radio personality', but she certainly is not a 'major' blogger.

Check her technorati ranking here
Rank: 536,218 (22 links from 9 blogs). It seems she gets hardly any traffic to her blog, yet she managed to get almost 200 votes all up in the 2 categories she was nominated in, even beating Aussie Dave in one of them!


Now, I ask, these are 'blogging' awards aren't they?


I don't remember the JIB's being radio awards?!

It was never supposed to be a popularity contest, it is supposed to be about awarding quality blogs, but now it seems its a contest who can rort the voting the most, it seems you don't really even need to have a blog."

I am sick of it. I am sick of the amount of people who have rorted these awards, and who expect other bloggers - 'real bloggers' not to say anything. It is not just this one, it has happened in other categories also. There were a few other blogs that either have basically very few readers and/or post very rarely and yet have somehow managed to get heaps more votes than some of the very well known bloggers who have large readerships.

This is certainly not a case of sour grapes - and I don't care what anyone says about that, but, I was against a similar blog in the 'Best Personal Blog' group I was in. The 90th Minute, this blogger also happens to be a journalist with articles appearing in publications including Haaretz, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post and European Jewish Press. Her technorati ranking can be found here, she is ranked Rank: 1,083,235 (8 links from 4 blogs)

Considering her readership and traffic to her blog, I find it hard to believe just over 100 votes have been from legitimate readers and not from the fact she is in the media and able to pull votes that way.

Another 'blog' that is in the service industry is JobMob. JobMob is a web site which helps people find jobs in Israel. They qualified in the JIB's for Best New blog with 79 votes (placed 2nd behind Tamar Yonah) and just missed out qualifying for Best Overall Blog with 68 votes. Both nominations of which I find a joke.

It seems that some journalists/ media organisations and service industries are using these awards purely as a promotional campaign to expose themselves to traffic and further their media profiles.

It is the real bloggers who are suffering because of this. The awards have been well run by the committee, but in hind sight, there really needs to be some form of criteria for each category for blog nominations to prevent this sort of abuse - it is not what the awards are supposed to be about.

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UPDATE - 12th May

Seems voting can be quite a strange thing.

We all know the finals are underway, but there are blogs that finished the last round of voting on, say, 140 votes that in this final round have only 20 votes after almost 3 days of voting. For example:

JSpot: 140 votes last round - this round after almost 3 days: 20 votes (at time of writing)

Muzzlewatch: 206 votes last round - this round after almost 3 days: 17 votes (at time of writing) and also in another category 213 votes last round - this round after almost 3 days: 18 votes (at time of writing)

90th Minute: 50 votes last round - this round after almost 3 days: 2 votes (at time of writing) they actually won their category of best personal blog last round.

There are many more examples and also plenty of examples of the reverse - that is blogs who scrapped through last round with a small score but have managed to significantly increase on that score this final round after almost 3 days of voting.

There are also some real stand outs who are going really well with gathering voters. Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen went straight through last round along with all that were nominated in the Kosher Food category. So far he has 216 votes! I wonder what the final vote tally will be there, sounds like it will be huge.

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