Compared to the statements you make above in the welcome box, your attitude: PRICELESS.

To be exact: the votes disqualified were votes that weren’t eligible anyway: for example, votes that voted the entire blog as the “best entry”, which was against the rules. But Phil still got the best new blog -nomination fair and square, don’t make a mistake about it.

If there’s a game, people will play it. No harm done, though.

I’m sorry to say this, but I smell a sore loser here.

You’ve lost a big chunk of your credibility over this whining. The first post about Kuukkelit I understood, but the second..? Oh man…

It’s not whining, it’s constructive criticism. I knew for certain that I wasn’t going to win, all the other blogs up for the award (especially yours) were far more worthy of an award compared to my political ramblings. I just think my readers have a right to know that they’re votes weren’t counted. Wouldn’t you like to know this information? Maybe I’m just a bit more sensitive about this because I come from the land (the U.S.) where we have a history of votes not being counted properly.

Every award-type ceremony has some fairly standard ethical practices, like not having a nominee be one of the judges for example. I think if the Kuukkeli crew make a few simple changes, it will be a huge success and critics like me will have nothing but praise to give.

It’s merely a suggestion to help improve the award for years to come, and no doubt the Kuukkeli crew would be open to suggestions. Even if I did win the award, I’d be making the exact same suggestions.

Phil, I understand where your coming from, but we’ve known for weeks that some of the judges were also nominees; it was no secret. That you kept quiet all this time and only speak up now can make it look as if you really were just disappointed that you didn’t get the award.

Yeah, this is definitely no secret or anything. I’ve known about this for weeks but kept my mouth shut because I knew if I’d say something, it certainly wouldn’t have helped out my chances to win. Although I knew for certain that “ei sinutella” was going to win – maybe I should have come out and said this earlier.

But like i said previously, I would have written this exact same article even if I had one, or wasn’t nominated in the first place.

I have to side with Phil here. As I did before. I think it’s really cheap to just accuse someone of being bitter for not winning. Even if it were the case, it still doesn’t invalidate what Phil is saying here: The whole thing stank. Not too badly, but stank, nevertheless.

And Phil’s comments have been very constructive, whereas the answers to his writings have been mostly under the belt.

So you’re saying that you wanted to win so badly you kept quiet, because you thought that we would only award people who are nice?

Janne, to be honest, I’ve already questioned your ethical practices concerning this award – so I wouldn’t put it past you to automatically rule out a particular blog because they weren’t “being nice.” I mean, if you can disqualify a bunch of votes without telling anyone, why not disqualify a particular blog as well? So I thought the more appropriate time to bring this up would be after the ceremony.

But like Tiedemies said, I’m trying to contribute only constructive criticism. My *only* goal here is to see the Finnish blogosphere grow and be taken more seriously by non-blog readers and the media – and I believe my suggestions would lead the Finnish blogosphere in that direction. Janne and others worked so hard and did SUCH an incredible job with the ceremony, I think just a few minor “tweaks” would make it absolutely perfect.

I think you have misunderstood the point of the awards . We are well aware of the weaknesses of the method used; had you been around a year ago you would know that the exact same criticism was made then.

We looked at it, realized that it was good – if we wanted to run a professional, Oscar-style gala. But we want to run a blogger awards gala. With our own, personal twist. You know, much like a blog.

Everyone is free to make up their own awards. Our way is one way – it ain’t better nor worse than anyone elses way. We just worked harder at it than most other awards (of which there are a few; some fun, some in bad taste, and some thoughtful), which is why it has gained most popularity. And we throw the best party.

Blog awards are not a competition of 110m hurdles where the absolute betterness or popularity of blogs could be measured. (It cannot, if you ask me – it would be absolutely stupid to claim that.) They are awards to blogs that the jury thinks are worth awarding. First, we ask the opinions worthy blogs from everyone, and then we make up our own mind. Nobody has ever claimed anything to the contrary.

Of course, some people do not agree with our assessment of good blogs. It’s difficult to choose someone from outside the nominees, because people will complain. It’s far more difficult to choose someone that you might know, because then people will complain about inner circles. This we did know and anticipated – and fair enough, it’s a valid point to criticize. But fear of criticism must not be a reason to shy away from giving an award to a good blog.

And this is the reason why I’m a bit disappointed in you, Phil: I would’ve hoped that you would’ve voiced your criticism earlier. Surely you must’ve realized that you will look like a sore loser, if you complain after the awards have been given. And something like that will retract from any criticism you make, valid or not.

“I think you have misunderstood the point of the awards”

You’re absolutely right Janne, I have misunderstood the point of the awards. I thought you guys were running Finland’s premiere and unofficial-official blog awards. I thought the point was to hold a professional award ceremony abiding to the commonsense ethical standards of any similar award ceremony. And I assumed that furthering the progress of blogs in Finland was your top priority.

But you wanted “just a convinient excuse to party” and you “don’t expect the awards to get bigger” and wouldn’t have said, “Awards are NEVER unbiased, nor fair” – You just wanted to do things your way, and that’s cool, it’s your award and you can do whatever you want. I just don’t think the press would have given you the same attention if they knew these things.

So my apologizes for actually taking Kultainen Kuukkeli seriously and thinking you were taking it seriously as well.

If I did not take the awards seriously, do you think I would be willing to put up with personal abuse emails (not you), and a bunch of people declaring me stupid, unethical and other insulting things as well? Just so that I could “have a convinient excuse to party”? *laugh*

No. I’m quite serious. The jury was very serious. It’s just that there are so many ways of doing things – yours and mine would obviously disagree. Perhaps your way is better. Perhaps you have not thought the whole thing through. Perhaps a public vote would result in everyone voting the same blog (it would’ve done so this year). Perhaps a jury-only system would end up rewarding only their friends.

It’s not easy. And no matter what you do, someone always thinks they can do a better job: if you look at Bloggies, you’ll see that they are run completely with a democratic voting system (well, not quite, but it’s a best effort), and they also get plenty of crap – it’s just different kind of crap.

Life is serious. But you can’t take it too seriously.

Well I’ve made my points to everyone and I think I’ll end it there. Janne, you’ve complained that people are criticizing your award each year and calling you “stupid” and “unethical” – maybe a few common sense ‘tweaks’ to the process would put an end to that? That’s all I’m suggesting here.

But I think Tiedemies summed it up the best when he said..

“If it is a contest about what five dudes think of their blogs and those of their friends – as it now seems to be – it is rather unfair to call in the media to celebrate it as the Finnish blog awards. True, anyone could start their own, but c’mon, how many do you think the media will report? It’s not like there are a million blogs in Finland.”

:violin: for Phil. “Cry me a river”