BoB is just a guy's name

My hubby and I didn't know you could vote multiple times in the BoB awards -- once every day, in fact. Plosh actually wrote a hilarious post about it. Go read it. It's funnier than I feel like being on the subject.

Frankly, I don't find the topic amusing at all. I don't mind losing on a level playing field. If it came down to my readers versus anyone else's, I've got it all over other bloggers in terms of quality, and I'm not displeased with the quantity either. Since the contest started, my hits have doubled and so have the comments, and I've exchanged linky love with several witty and brilliant Mommas.

Plus, I'm grateful to see my relatively newish blog momentarily lifted out of obscurity.

I'm waaay hung up on the voting mechanism, though.

Sorry, I was raised to think democracy meant one person, one vote. Is that outdated, or what? And to think, this morning I was wracked with guilt because I used a second email address to vote for myself. I really thought I'd cheated, and I felt pathetic. I still feel pathetic.

When I think of the lessons I want my son to learn, I keep getting stuck on dumb, outmoded models of thinking like integrity, honesty, righting wrongs, etc. I know, I know, yadda yadda yadda.

I just don't think writing contests should come down to who can best manipulate the system. Most of my relatives aren't that Web-savvy, and I already felt like a pimp just asking readers to vote for me once.

As someone who's opened some 60+ rejection letters in the last three years alone, I already thought I knew the main obstacles: overcoming my introverted nature to market myself, remaining confident of my abilities despite repeated rejections, taking harsh criticism like a woman (i.e., with only a minimum of crying), mustering the energy to keep writing, keep dreaming, keep trying.

But this is a new rut in the road: how to overcome a system seemingly rigged against the honest blogger. Or am I just naive?

I'm not saying the folks who've worked night and day to bring us the BoB awards are somehow dishonest, but I'm hoping next year's contest balances things out for those of us whose soaring imaginations still cannot fathom how to stuff a ballot box.

In the meantime, I've cast my last vote for myself, though I'll still be voting for DadTalk and This Mama Cooks! because they've asked, and I know how humbling that must've been.

As for coming in last, I like to think I'm scoring a perfect "10." But then, I was always bad at math too.

Comments

[Suzanne]

For what it's worth, I've voted for you every day!

[Gooch]

I think the problem even if they went the one person, one vote route is that anyone could just come up with an infinite # of email addresses and you'd be back to square one.

Hey, it's an honor just to be nominated. How do you think I feel?

:-)

[Anne]

Suzanne: Wow, I'm flattered. Thanks.

Gooch: And your blog is waaay funnier than mine. How did that happen?

[Leslie]

Yea. This contest is stressing me out. I notice a huge increase in hits, but suddenly, I'm totally self conscience. I hate that! I was fine just blogging away, had no idea what the BOB award even was and was honored just to be in the finals. Now I check the stats all the time.

I just found out last night that people are voting multiple times with various emails. Interesting. I agree with you, though. We have kick butt blogs. :-) Our readers think so, even if they only have one email address or can't figure out how to vote (my Mother In Law)

[Leslie]

P.S. You're not LAST, you're in TENTH. Y'all beat out a bunch of people to get to the finals. And your blog is great. :-)

[Faith]

I, for some unknown reason, have 478 email addresses that I use regularly. Since learning the "rules" of the game, I used every one of them just now to vote for you. After all, I nominated you and I'm most certainly not too proud to use the rules to your advantage. But I agree, it's not right, but then almost nothing is.

[Anne]

Faith: You are Fan #1, the first and bestest of them all. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I've grown comfortable with 10th place and have been joking about it on the other Mommy sites. So I'm cool with it. In fact, I think I'm better off than some of the people in the middle ranks who're stressing big time. I'm just happy to be here, is how I see it.