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The Galloping Beaver
*applause* well said dave.
Huzzah. And thanks.
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/2007/...nd-date-change/
Thanks Dave. Very good explanation.
They are not adding a feminist Category this year BTW.
As for your thoughts on an expanded and variety laden left-progressive awards....Keep your eyes peeled. This is in the works.
Thank you for those good, measured words. From an avid reader of TGB.
Thank you for your observations. Elegantly and fairly expressed. Dave, you are a true mensch!!!
That clears up some of the mystery
Excellent post Dave, thanks.
Pale: "They are not adding a feminist Category this year BTW."
In your opinion we didn't.
"Best Activist Blog
All blogs that write about activism are eligible for this category. Acceptable activism types include (but are not limited to) community building, feminism, peace, protest, and vegetarianism. Blogs which primarily attempt to lobby politicians, may be better suited to one of the Best Political Blog categories."
"Best GLBT Blog
All blogs that write about GLBT life, and blogs devoted to gender and sexual equality are eligible for this category."
So really, there are two categories explicitly available to feminist bloggers, they can have their pick of which to run in. Whichever better suits their style of feminism.
If you'd rather win a more limited and exclusive "Feminism only" category, I guess you will have to run your own awards for 2007. Personally, I'd think it more impressive to beat all other activists by having feminist bloggers the top 5 standouts of the year, than to run a category with only feminists as an option.
If you'd like to participate in the CBAs with everyone else who does, you're welcome. When your exclusive awards are a success, hopefully you're interested in operating them with the CBA team in 2008. And if you'd like, we'll put a link to your blog awards this year, just let me or any other CBA Operator know where it is.
Activist blogs could be about environmental activism. Or, anti war activism. Or Pro war activism. Also included would be those bizarre blogs where men blame feminism for all their troubles in life and do letter writing campaigns....In crayon I suppose.
There was no feminism blog added. You are obtuse. and yes we are already doing just that. It won't be the clusterf*uck and disaster you and your regressive freinds have wrought.
Just stop denying. Its so lame.
"Best Activist Blog" != Best Feminist Blog.
"Best GLBT Blog" != Best Feminist Blog.
"Saskboy" = Biggest Asshat in Canada. (Hey, there's a category to campaign for.)
"Activist blogs could be about environmental activism. Or, anti war activism. Or Pro war activism. " ...or feminism.
Yes, duh. Who's being obtuse? The point is that the category isn't restricted to just one type of activism. Did you not understand that if you run a Best Feminist Blog awards, and only feminism bloggers can run, then a feminism blogger will win? That won't necessarily happen in a Best Activist category, but you still have a great shot at sweeping it (if you are really in it for winning on online poll, and not for simply being listed so readers looking for a list of the most notable blogs in Canada can find you there).
Couple that with the GLBT category remaining open to feminist bloggers who consider their blogs in favour of gender/sexual equality, and you have TWO categories. Not to mention the likely "progressive" political category, and other applicable ones.
Might I note that through the week, and after I told several of the "girlcotters" that if one stepped forward with a volunteer to judge a category so increased workload was no longer a consideration, you'd have had your explicit/specific category this year? Guess what? No one wanted the job.
Saskboy, what Pale just said.
I'm sorry but you just allowed yourself to be steamrollered. That is nowhere near a good enough solution and, in fact, is no different than the previous compromise.
What is it that makes people fear the word Feminist?
My only conclusion is that you were faced with Conservatives who simply could not accept that feminism is NOT about wild, hairy, ball-busting, man-hating women.
This is a feminist blog and I take great umbrage that Conservative ideology has now taken over and limited the ability to get the subject of feminism the exposure it deserves in a category of its own.
The only reason it isn't happening, unless you can explicitly state otherwise, is that "some" people don't like the word or the distinction.
And that, my friend, is the Conservative mindset at work.
I am now pissed-right-off.
That's cute Mattt, can I quote you?
Dave, we cross posted so I'll wait for you to confirm that before I respond.
My comment stands. I am incensed. Your explanation is not just weak; it's simply not acceptable.
Best Activist Blog? Again! You guys (need I make that point too loudly?) have once again marginalized a large and hugely active topic of the blogosphere by lumping it in with something else.
Not. Fucking. Good. Enough.
That's cute Mattt, can I quote you?
Feel free. I'll even have t-shirts made.
Yes, duh. Who's being obtuse? The point is that the category isn't restricted to just one type of activism. Did you not understand that if you run a Best Feminist Blog awards, and only feminism bloggers can run, then a feminism blogger will win?
*headdesk*
Congratulations. You are now officially SUZANNE's organ grinding monkey. Have fun being usefully idiotic.
Sorry Dave, I think you should calm down and give it some good thought like you did for your well thought out post today.
Does it really matter if "feminism" is in the title opposed to the description? Arguably yes, but that wasn't what CBA decided to do this year. If feminist bloggers run their own awards, and are that dedicated to participating in online awards devoted to just them, I can't see why the CBAs wouldn't include Best Feminist Blog as a category in 2008 from the get-go.
Why did no one volunteer to help judge when that was offered as an almost immediate "solution" to an explicit/specific category request?
Since online poll results are dubious at best, why are people jockeying for position as if winning validates their cause, and getting beat by perceived slime (in their eyes) would be crushing? The blogosphere is filled with injustice in this way (Michelle Malkin has more readers than she has brain cells, for example). Jon Swift is probably the funniest and most insightful blogger I've encountered Stateside, but has a fraction of the attention.
The rhetoric that I (and CBA Operators) am somehow "scared" by Feminism, and even the word "feminism", borders on insulting. The inclusion of a category is not an endorsement of the bloggers or content in their pages. I should have stepped up and said that the first day, but I didn't. And the exclusion, or less prominent inclusion, of a category is not a condemnation of the bloggers or content of their pages, either.
Mattt,
Hmm, I'm an asshat, a monkey... what else? I'm sure you can dehumanize me in more ways than that, it will make insulting me easier in the future.
You forgot "useful idiot for the so-con antifeminist elite".
I maintain....
Not. Fucking. Good. Enough.
Does it really matter if "feminism" is in the title opposed to the description? Arguably yes, but that wasn't what CBA decided to do this year.
You answered your own question and then dismissed it!!!! WHY?!!!
Yes! It does matter. Feminism is a highly charged and widely read topic in the blogosphere. You KNOW that. You are allowing the wingnuts to dictate policy in promoting their own political agenda.
Why did no one volunteer to help judge when that was offered as an almost immediate "solution" to an explicit/specific category request?
So... that would suggest you now have a teacher in the group to support your addition of "Best Education Blog" after the nominations had opened. Who is that, by the way?
The rhetoric that I (and CBA Operators) am somehow "scared" by Feminism, and even the word "feminism", borders on insulting.
Allow me to eliminate the border. Somebody is afraid of the word or this whole thing wouldn't be where it is. Is that clear enough? Let me say it: Stephen Taylor doesn't like it because his blogging freakshow will eat him for fucking breakfast. Don't argue with me on that. You know it's true.
The inclusion of a category is not an endorsement of the bloggers or content in their pages.
No. But it would provide exposure particularly among like blogs in the feminist blogosphere. To lump them in with something non-descript eliminates that exposure. There is a good chance that such a category would give Canadian feminist blogs more exposure and a unique presence beyond the 49th parallel.
And the exclusion, or less prominent inclusion, of a category is not a condemnation of the bloggers or content of their pages, either.
So, lemme get this straight. You can create a new "Activist" category, (didn't exist until tonight), without a new volunteer judge but which will bring in other "activists" so as to give the feminist blogs a place to display their activism, which is nothing more or less than the struggle for equality.
How, pray tell, does that work? Was there an "Activist" category last year that I didn't see?
WHAT is the force that will not see feminist blogs gain deserved exposure in their own category?
By adding another category and NOT providing what was requested, it is indeed a condemnation... of the request.
Is that a ring I see?
I do have another judge coming on board soon, on the condition that they first recruit another non-political blogger to join our team with them. I certainly wouldn't think it fair to thrust them the job of publicly judging eligibility on such a spring loaded category.
I'm not ready to discuss all of your other questions and accusations in public right now. I think you should ask Stephen Taylor that one for instance. You maybe shouldn't jump to conclusions. He is after all the one who pointed out to me that we were lacking an explicit GLBT category before the awards were underway.
Saskboy said: "Might I note that through the week, and after I told several of the "girlcotters" that if one stepped forward with a volunteer to judge a category so increased workload was no longer a consideration, you'd have had your explicit/specific category this year? Guess what? No one wanted the job."
That is an outright lie. I have just checked all the posts that you made in the discussion thread, Part 1 and 2, for CBA 2007 and I see absolutely no mention of such an offer.
deBeauxOs
http://
unrepentantoldhippie.blog...some.html#61246
I'd try to find the first time (or others) but that's enough to show that I suggested it where I knew those unhappy would see the offer.
Ah it was easy to find it.
http://
unrepentantoldhippie.blog...some.html#61225
"Find someone (or more) not able to be nominated in a Feminist Blog category and I'm confident I can get the Operators to agree to it." 12.20.07 - 7:12 am
Sorry that you didn't post in that discussion and see that if you were interested. I should have posted it in a more prominent place maybe. I just figured that with mattt, and others eagerly pouring over everything I said anywhere, they'd let B&Roses people know about my suggested solution.
Keep in mind that wasn't even the only place the implicit offer, was made too. The Contact page has had a request for further help from the beginning, and I mentioned early on that adding more categories increased our workload.
Funny enough, I was going to link that comment @ JJ's place, too.
Of course, I was going to use it as exhibit 'A' of Saskboy's disingenuous revisionism, but...
Oh, and Dave, sadly, it wasn't Taylor:
Northern BC Dipper (15:42:12) :
I agree, Dr. Dawg. This is a test. Do we stand up to bullies or not? I say we should. The other 4 operators feel the same way.
This controversy will die its rightful death.
[...]
Look, all I’ve said here is that if you tick off people that are nice enough to organize an event, then you aren’t going to get what you want.
Seems obvious to me.
It seems that people have failed to learned a lesson in tactics. Ah well. Their tactics have failed.
Maybe next year.
The Contact page has had a request for further help from the beginning, and I mentioned early on that adding more categories increased our workload.
Rewind: And “Best Feminist Blog” cannot be done, as it is unacceptable to some.
Keep spinning; keep digging.
As you can surely note Mattt, I didn't write those comments by NBCDipper. I certainly see his frustration, but had a slightly different position on some aspects of this debacle.
I will happily jump to conclusions since the public record makes it look like SUZANNE objected and three of you ran for cover.
There is no other supportable explanation provided, by you or anybody else. Simply SUZANNE's swarm and then a rejection of the idea. Taylor has been oddly silent.
You claim the need for someone to judge the eligibility... so explain the addition of two categories without subject matter experts to do the judging.
We were nominated under the Milblog category. Who decides on our eligibility? Someone who doesn't know an artillery piece from a table-fork?
You continue to claim "extra work" but then add two categories while, with a clear intention, avoiding doing the most straightforward thing. Clearly, there is an attempt to prevent the requested category from forming because you keep trying to develop something else in its place.
In short, you've acquiesced to SUZANNE. If that's NOT the case then you have some cleaning up to do because that's the only picture anybody is getting.
It's alright to defend your position; It's not alright to defend your position badly.
Dave,
"so explain the addition of two categories without subject matter experts to do the judging."
You try to find subject matter experts, who don't have blogs nominated in those categories, and are willing to judge a blog awards, and you sir are brilliant. Sign them up please.
Here, in case the comments before weren't enough that I tried more than once to make it clear that more help = more categories with less resistance.
===
Well, you might have put it in plain English like:
"If someone [new] is willing to manage that category, it's a go."
As stated it reads as though you need one of the existing crew to step up to the plate.
Hindsight and all.
Gigi | 12.20.07 - 10:04 am | #
Fine!
"If someone [new and un-nominated for the category] is willing to manage that category, it's a go [in my opinion {I'll still have to see what the other Operators think too}]."
saskboy | Homepage | 12.20.07 - 10:07 am | #
You try to find subject matter experts, who don't have blogs nominated in those categories, and are willing to judge a blog awards, and you sir are brilliant. Sign them up please.
Nooo! You're not getting away with that.
You're explanation for NOT including a category of "Best Feminist Blog" carried a caveat that you couldn't get someone to judge it. Then you added two categories without applying the same caveat.
First rule of holes.
This is what I found, in the "barks" section of unrepentant old hippies December 19th blog.
In reply to pretty shaved ape's following comment: "I said this elsewhere - feminist blogs exist because there is a distinct voice that reflects feminist perspective on the Net. That alone should have immediately opened the door to recognize the category. They have a network among each other - another sign of a category. They've been around for a long time - yet another sign. Finally, that so many bloggers are upset at the exclusion shows many of us believe there is such a category." ..... saskboy said: 'Now that's a fair argument, thank you for making one. Find someone (or more) not able to be nominated in a Feminist Blog category and I'm confident I can get the Operators to agree to it.'
Further down saskboy said to Gigi: 'And is that the sound of you still not finding someone willing to do the WORK that adding a category entails?'
Her response: "I guess I missed the post where they asked for someone to step up and run the category. OH WAIT, they didn't."
To which saskboy responded: 'Sure, calling me a liar will help matters.
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/2007/......lk/#comment-
269
December 17, 2007 at 2:48 pm
"when it comes down to it, my time and effort is most likely to be the one at stake for implementing whatever the rules are. If no one else steps up for a task, I’ll have to do it."
and
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/about/
"(If you’d like to help out, email saskboy @ hotmail . com and put “Blog Awards” in the subject line.)"
There was NO clearly stated offer from the CBA organizers. Your own record shows that your original remarks were ambiguous and oblique.
And the reply to PSA's post that requested a volunteer judge was directed to that specific poster, not in any seemingly official capacity. IMHO the whole thing reads as a flaccid attempt to cover your ass, and not as a genuine invitation to join the ranks of the CBA organizers, saskboy.
We nearly crossposted deB. Look up for your (pre)response. How did I predict that you'd try spinning the lack of your compatriots volunteering, to be completely my fault?
==
Dave, I already answered that. Some categories have no controversy, and it's easy to find judges willing to dot i's and cross t's compared to deciding if "savethemales" counts as a "feminist" blog because it talks about feminism.
You need a recruit? Let me go ask the American feminist blogosphere if they have anyone available. That way no one Canadian feminist blog would become ineligible.
saskboy said: "We nearly crossposted deB. Look up for your (pre)response. How did I predict that you'd try spinning the lack of your compatriots volunteering, to be completely my fault?"
Excuse me - spinning? If you need to feel that you're a blameless, innocent bystander in all this, why should I prop up your delusion?
I'm out of this discussion with you - life is too short to spar verbally with someone unwilling to take responsibility for his demonstration of bad faith.
And I, for one, am proud of the posse. It is the best posse I could have asked for.
As one of the named participants of this blog I will state my preferences here and now.
Actions are entirely up to Dave.
We not only ought to refrain from encouraging readers to vote for us but we ought to actively encourage readers to refrain from participating in the charade at all. In effect we ought to actively and enthusiastically encourage readers to boycott the entire process. Clearly it has become tainted by the socially conservative mind set (such as it is)and is being enthusiastically abetted by this boy from Saskatchewan who continues to defend his immaturity with either claims of infallibility or protestations of impotence.
Also we ought to reconsider our blog roll. There are some blogs I would rather not include. Sask Boy is one. There are probably others and may be more as this foolishness advances.
We also ought to reconsider our inclusion in the Progressive Bloggers aggregate.
Speaking only for me I do not want to be associated in any way with a so called left leaning blog that is willing to deny the reality of feminism as a force in our society. No more than I am willing to vote for a political party that does so by slashing funding to organizations or groups that promote women's equality.
No one, I'm sure, is unaware of my decision last year to tear up my NDP membership. I haven't made a secret of it.
The NDP has been legitimizing Stephen Harper's agenda for over 2 years.
This is just more of it.
I say reject it completely. As completely as if it were the Manley Commission.
The Canadian Blog Awards have been co-opted by the So-Cons and the NDP have helped them do it.
"You need a recruit? Let me go ask the American feminist blogosphere if they have anyone available. That way no one Canadian feminist blog would become ineligible."
Sounds like a good idea. I know we hadn't planned on changing anything after Friday come hell or high water, but if it would actually cause less controversy to make further changes, than what there is now, why not, eh? I know several bloggers have said they aren't coming back come hell or high water, so would we want to even bother this year?
Well, time to sleep on it, good night.
"
We also ought to reconsider our inclusion in the Progressive Bloggers aggregate."
Oh good golly. Way to bring up something unrelated
Good night.
Unrelated?
Good golly, Miss Molly?!
How do you think that collective derives its legitimacy?
If you think its from precious, exclusive asshats like you I'd rather not be associated.
I'd much prefer to be associated with an unaligned aggregate without the precocious title.
Well I hope for their sakes the fact that no one stepped up after that late-to-the-party-post has nothing to do with it having been too late at that point and that a parallel blogging award is in the development somewhere.
Actually I don't hope that at all.
*whistles innocently*
Dave: I agree that there should be a Regressive Blog Awards and a Progressive Blog Awards. This should be obvious just by the fact that SDA won Best Canadian Blog. And the fact that FiveFeetofFeces was even recognized. When a contest organizer feels the need to include someone like KKKathy in what is supposed to be a legitimite contest, then they have achieved farce status. Blogs that post real news and have real discussions have nothing to do with blogs that solely exist to post racist rantings.
I'd like to touch on this "too much work" meme going on.
I run a board, oversee what seven..eight blogs, help people on a regular basis with tech issues etc etc etc....
Sure a bit of work is involved but if you are afraid of work..don't take on the responsibility.
The extra work..can't find judges yada yada yada just sounds like a lot of crying.
LGTB blogs need to stand on their own. They do valuable work and should not have to 'compete' against war activists or feminists. They are not blogging about fringe subjects. In fact to not be considered fringe is surely some of the point!
Similarly feminism is a very specific activism. Struggles for fair pay, freedom from blame for sexual assault, reproductive choice, childcare... these are issues that affect not only women, but men, families, children, and the way our society can grow to be more inclusive and protective of all.
To suggest that feminist blogging is not important enough to have it's own category is suggesting that these issues carry no weight..at least not with the operators standing by to dismiss your call.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Get your links out there and stand on your Quality.
Did you not understand that if you run a Best Feminist Blog awards, and only feminism bloggers can run, then a feminism blogger will win?
But why is that a problem?
You want someone to judge a Best Feminist Blog? I'll do it.
Next roadblock please.
Wow, when I crashed last night there was one entry in this thread, now there are 46 as of this writing. For a topic/controversy the awards operators think will die down this seems awfully active to me, and with the responses from Dave showing just how revisionist the defenders of the awards are being on this issue it seems to me that this is not going to be forgotten any time soon nor that those which have defended this idiocy will soon lose the taint it has placed upon them.
Like I said at CC's yesterday, I am not someone that cares at all about awards nor participates in them so when something like this blows up so extensively that I am seeing it everywhere I go that speaks volumes for the ripples it has sent out. Indeed, that it was so obviously a sore point with so many caused me to look into it and see for myself what this was all about, and when I did I found that those complaining about the awards operators appeared to be the ones with the legitimate arguments and it was the operators of the awards whose arguments kept shifting.
When I made this point to SB at CC's he totally missed it and instead lectured me for daring to have an opinion which was of course totally wrong of course about this since I didn't do awards to begin with, even though I made clear in the original post that I had said all that to underscore just how much a mess this has created that it pulled someone like me in who normally pays no attention to such things.
Then to add insult to injury he made a Christmas crack about he would make a person's life a little better if they only got more exposure even to one more person than they would otherwise if they chose to be a part of his award and what a nice Christmas gift that would make. What SB clearly fails to recognize is that it is at least as must his attitude in defending himself as his revisionist spin that is causing him to lose whatever credibility he had in the wider progressive blogosphere.
At this point I don't see how he or his fellow operators are going to restore any credibility to this year's awards or even for themselves as persons/bloggers. They made their beds in this, well now they will be lying in them.
I would add this, while I do not write from a feminist position in my writings I am fully supportive of their goals as I have never understood why it is so hard for so many to see and treat men and women as equally human beings who deserve equal treatment and pay for equal work across the board. I also understand the importance of the GBLT distinction in no small part because both my wife and I are bisexuals and we have first hand understanding of the issues there, lumping feminism into generic activist is bad enough, to lump it in with GLBT insults the meaning of both feminism and GLBT issues, and shows a distinct amount of contempt for both IMHO. So the proposed "solutions" the awards operators have put forward only compounds the damage not repair it.
Sask - Best Activist Blog? That's all you guys could come up with? I'm sorry, I have a lot of patience but that's a crock. FD has an "activist" category on its message board where they discuss fetus fetishist activism. And as we all now know, there's the men's rights activism. Must feminism be lowered to that level to find a place in the CBAs?
Look -- Feminism includes activism, but hasn't been limited to it since the days I had a "Why Not" poster up on my apartment wall.
The activism began paying off in societal recognition of womens' issues long ago, and feminism now influences virtually every aspect of our society in some way. If you guys don't get that, I don't know what to say. Except I'm very sad
What JJ said, plus this:
Feminism is now in its third century. Its formal beginning was in 1792 with Mary Wollstonecraft. Its central insight -- that social hierarchies are political constructs, not natural facts -- is perhaps the most important idea of the post-Enlightenment period. It's the grandmother of all subsequent social reform movements.
It's rather important, really.
Oh Chet, you shouldn't have said that. Now SB can say its too old an idea to be included.
JJ: ...feminism now influences virtually every aspect of our society in some way.
Two early homework assignments, apparently never completed.
Chet: Feminism is now in its third century. Its formal beginning was in 1792 with Mary Wollstonecraft. Its central insight -- that social hierarchies are political constructs, not natural facts -- is perhaps the most important idea of the post-Enlightenment period. It's the grandmother of all subsequent social reform movements.
Well said, Chet.
More homework.
Sorry Dave, I think you should calm down
- Saskboy at 12.21.07 - 9:46 pm
Congrats Saskboy! Dave wins!
White Liberal Bingo!
BONUS SQUARE! AUTOMATIC WIN!
"You need to calm down."
h/t - matttbastard
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