SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

WOW

Many thanks to Josh Cohen over at Multiple Mentality. Seems that he threw the Salad's name in the pile over at the Weblog Awards under the category of Best Photo Blog.

I have to say I'm really honored that he would do that. Maybe because I didn't really think I was doing a true photo blog. But, in retrospect, that's probably a more accurate description of the Salad than, say, Best Middle East Or Africa Blog or Best LGBT Blog. (If you have to ask what a LGBT is - this would be you, Mom - you don't want to know.)

I doubt that I'll make the finals. Hell, there are 37 other nominations, so that makes for a pretty full menu.

As for what happens from here, I'm somewhat in the dark, although the FAQ does shed a little light:

Q: How will finalist be picked?

A: To understand how 15 finalists in each category will be picked you first have to understand how they were nominated. Since you're reading this you're probably aware of the call for nominations for all of the award categories. In 2004 there were about 3000 nominations for the various categories, and we expect more this year.

For the most part if a site is not nominated it wont be considered as a finalist in a category. For everyone who will complain that we "missed" one site or another, our question to you is, "did you nominate them?" We don't have ESP here at the Weblog Awards, though it a oft requested feature.

Q: I nominated XXX, but don't see them as a finalist. Why is XXX not included?

A: Several thousand blogs will be nominated. Of the hundreds nominated in each category there's at most 15 up for voting. Many, many excellent blogs are not going to be finalists, so prepare yourself for disappointment. It should be noted that

You are, of course, free to disagree with the finalists we choose, but denigrating the sites selected will not be tolerated. Calling such and such site "shitty", "lame", etc. is a pretty cruel thing to do, especially since many of the sites nominated didn't even know they would be included. If you don't like the choices available don't participate.

Q: No offense, but some of the nominations in Best XXX suck. Those are not the best XXX... YYY and XXX are much better.

A: See the previous entry. Offense taken. Throwing backhanded insults at nominees or finalists is not a good way to enter the discussion....

Anway, I'm being honest in saying that I'm touched by Josh's thoughtfulness. The Salad isn't something that gets a lot of notice beyond my small tribe of irritable poets. But I appreciate it entirely. And I'll keep you updated if anything comes out of it.

Cheers.

Posted by Jeff at November 30, 2005 11:56 PM