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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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