As any of you who’ve been following the JIBA slug fest between Aussie Dave and myself here will know, I’ve been pointing out inconsistencies, self-dealing and bias in the Awards for a few weeks now. Now it’s come to my attention that another contention of Dave’s may be unreliable at best.
The blog that never made it into JIBAI’ve criticized the JIBA rule that blogs insufficiently supportive of Israel could be disqualified according to its rules. To which Aussie Dave has replied that no blogs were disqualified. But a blogger (who wishes to remain anonymous since he/she has a lower tolerance for the type of insults and invective of which Dave is capable) has revealed to me:
I nominated a blog for the “Life in Israel” category – Step By Step. The writer has shown on a number of occasions that she is left of center, and her blog wasn’t accepted…
Step by Step is an intimate, personal account of a woman’s experience of making aliyah to Israel alone and without immediate family. I contacted Yael Kaynan, who writes this blog and she never knew she had been nominated.
I hesitate using categorical statements until Aussie Dave gives us the lowdown on what happened. Given that Step by Step appears a quite interesting and non-threatening blog (at least in terms of its politics), I find it hard to believe it would’ve been disqualified for its politics. But why didn’t it appear in JIBA? At the very least, one might ask how Aussie Dave and the Post guarantee that all nominated blogs actually appear in competition. They’ve either screwed up or deliberately removed Step by Step for some reason. Or the Post’s server “ate” the nomination form submitted by the mystery blogger. Which is it, guys?
One more thing: why were some blogs which were nominated in multiple categories reduced to appearing in only one–while some blogs appear in multiple categories? This happened in at least one case I know about personally. And why wasn’t the decision communicated to the person who nominated the blog or to the nominated blogger?
Knowing of Dave’s level of paranoia concerning every statement I make, I want to assure him and everyone that I have e mails from the mystery blogger in question in which he/she identifies him/herself and his/her blog. I have absolutely no reason to doubt him/her (though Dave might find one or two).
As for my comment about self-dealing above…here’s an interesting tidbit from mystery blogger. One of the JIBA nominated blogs is Treppenwitz. The only problem with this is that Treppenwitz is also featured in the Post’s own blog section. So in effect Treppenwitz has a built in advantage over the other nominated blogs because it receives all that extra promotion from its appearance in the Post’s separate blog section. Furthermore, Treppenwitz’s spouse has designed the JIBA logo (and a nice one it is). But isn’t it a bit odd that the spouse of a JIBA nominee is designing the logo? It’s just a bit too cozy and “I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you’ll-scratch-mine.” Or as mystery blogger put it:
…Had this been a proper competition, such connections would never be allowed.
You are really barking up the wrong tree. Actually you’re barking mad, but that’s another issue.
Regarding Step-by-Step, here is the nomination:
http://www.israellycool.com/blog/JIBAwards/JIBAwards2005/_archives/2000/2/12/1434330.html#537135
Notice anything about it? It is not in the correct format, and we excluded ALL blogs not in the correct format, most of which were right-wing as I have previously told you on numerous occasions. I was very clear in the rules about this issue:
http://www.israellycool.com/blog/JIBAwards/_archives/2005/12/14/1448965.html
But that’s not the end of the story. We even gave these blogs another opportunity by creating a new category:
http://www.israellycool.com/blog/JIBAwards/JIBAwards2005/_archives/2006/1/4/1589311.html
Regarding your second basless accusation, the formula was simple: if a blog was nominated c orrectly, it made it, unless 1) virulently anti-Semitic or anti-Israel (not enforced) or 2) in Best Designed category, we were able to eliminate some blogs using simple blogger templates.
But feel free to go through all the nominations and try to find some irregularity or proof of bias. If you do that, then you might have spent about 5% of the time I have spent organizing and helping run these awards.
Have YOU done anything useful lately?
“My decision will be based on which I feel are the best of those nominated.”
So the excluded blogs still have to be ok’d by you and you alone……even in the new category.
“…Had this been a proper competition, such connections would never be allowed.”
Had this been a proper competition, the Jerusalem Post would’ve insisted on a larger number of people involved in the decision making process….and eliminated the kind of doubts about bias that happens when the organiser of a competition is so involved with many of the other competitors in a business environment.
Coming from the man who almost called me “dickhead” your astute diagnosis is right on target. However, it says nothing about me & rather reflects only on you. And it isn’t to your credit.
Yes, the directions were written there. But you obviously had a number of people whose nominations were disallowed because they didn’t understand them. That would tell me you had a wee problem with communication (either on your end or theirs or both). Besides having to follow 10 (Dave actually has 2 step 9s but we’ll attribute that either to his inability to count or to a typo) separate steps (no matter how easy it might be for you or me) to nominate a blog might some confuse people–& obviously did. Here’s what you had to do:
Furthermore, how much trouble would it have been to him for those whose nominations didn’t follow the specified directions (& who nominated using their name & contact info) to send them a short, canned response indicating they hadn’t completed the nomination process properly & offering them another chance?
Dave boasts about what a big heart he has in allowing “excluded” blogs to be renominated. But how would the person who nominated one know it had been excluded unless they went to the category & rooted through all the nominees to confirm the blog wasn’t included. That’s expecting a lot from people who don’t necessarily visit your blog regularly (though I can’t for the life of me understand why they wouldn’t).
Ah, Dave our standards of usefulness are quite different I’m afraid. I happen to believe that espousing a belief that the Israelis & Palestinians must come to terms with ea. other under conditions that are equitable for both parties is quite useful. Your definition of usefulness would go something like this: making the world safe from Islamofascists and sand niggers (a JDL activist recently murdered in federal prison once left me a threatening phone message saying I’d go the way of the ‘dead sand nigger’ whom the JDL had just assassinated by letter bomb in Orange County, CA around 1983). Pointing out the perfidy, treachery and downright badness of Islam (& Palestinians in particular) is “usefulness” in your book, no?
You just accused me of rigging the competition again, and I disproved you. Now you change your argument and criticize the rules and administration thereof. You are the worst debater I have ever encountered in the blogosphere, and that is saying something.
Don’t you have anything better to do?
I am now officially done with you. It got old a while ago, and I have said my piece. Now go enjoy your retirement.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, Dave. If you’re talking about Step by Step and why it wasn’t accepted as a nominee this is what I really said:
How is that accusing you of ‘rigging the competition?’ Now that you’ve explained what happened to the blog, I accept that you didn’t disqualify it for political reasons. But I wonder why you had to disqualify it at all if you had more professional nomination procedures in place. And regarding your rigging charge, if you’re talking about something other than Step by Step you’re really going to have to explain yourself a wee bit better as none of us here can read your mind.
Dave, I don’t “change my argument.” New evidence of problematic issues concering JIBA was revealed to me by a blogger and I merely verified and reported what I was told. My goal here is to reveal as much as I can about the workings of JIBA so I can show people that it’s not the ray of sunshine you and the Post would have us believe.
Debating? Is that what we’re doing? I thought I was swatting flies. Sorry, that was uncharitable of me. I take it back.
Dave, you’ve used a variation of “I’m done with you” so many times in these threads I’ve lost count. And you’ve lost credibility. My readers too are probably hoping you’ll go Phht from these parts. Why don’t you actually do what you say you’re going to do & stop coming back for more?
But I guess I’ve grown accustomed to your…well, certainly not your face–but perhaps your witty repartee.
Personally, I think all these best of the blogs contests are completely silly and should be banned entirely. People did not get into the blogging idea in order to create contests. What is the need for this? I disagree completely with the entire concept of these blog contests and nominations, the New York Times should write an expose soon and stop all this nonsese.
Everyone, just blog. Don’t be so competitive and snippety! Just let everyone have their say and read what you wish. Jeez!
Whatever happened to the peaceful blogosphere!?
danny bee wrote: “Whatever happened to the peaceful blogosphere!?”
Dunno. Ask Mr. Silverstein.
As far as I’m concerned if Aussie Dave and the J. Post took Danny Bee’s advice & closed up shop I’d be happy as a clam & you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me (at least on this subject). Actually, I’d be even happier if someone actually tried to make JIBA more representative of the entire Jewish blogworld.
But given the likelihood of either eventuality being nil, I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing whether Aussie Dave or others like it or not. Who else is asking tough questions of JIBA? It’s a subject worthy covering and if no one else is doing it I’ll take up the task.