The JIBs- What I find Distasteful

The JIBs are in full bloom now. Throughout the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere there is ongoing and consistent discussion about them and I think that this is great.

Allow me to make it clear that I think that the JIBs are a good idea and important. I think that Dave deserves our thanks for getting them up and running. It has been a great resource for being exposed to blogs that are new to me. Some of them have been excellent.

A short time ago I launched my entry salvo in the comments or should I say complaints about the awards. If you are interested you can read that here.

The reason that I am writing about this again is that I was asked to provide more specific details about what bothers me about them. After some more thought I think that it comes down to a couple of things.

Part 1.

I think that the voting favors the blogs with the largest readership. That is not necessarily a fair criticism, at least not in that form. So let me expand upon that to say that I think that a large readership indicates that the blog must have something. It must be a quality blog or the readers would abandon it.

The issue is that there are other blogs out there that may not have had the same exposure as the bigger ones and may in fact be superior to them but due to a smaller readership they have almost no shot of winning.

I suppose that what I am saying is that I wish that there was some form of measurement that could be used so that we could level the playing field, but no such measurement exists. And in conscience I have to admit that this really does mirror life.

Sometimes the better product is not the more popular or more successful item. Sometimes the better product loses. That is just the way that it goes.

Part 2

I don’t like the way in which some bloggers are campaigning. It shouldn’t be a junior high school popularity contest, at least I would rather that it not come across that way. If you have to beg for votes then maybe you shouldn’t participate. Have some faith in your own material.

You shouldn’t have to ask friends/family/business associates who have never read your blog to vote for you just because you want to win.

And there you have my two shekalim on the matter.