The Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards nomination process will be open for another two days (April 19th). Before I go any farther let me explain that I have an extremely checkered history with JIBA. In its previous incarnation under its founder, Aussie Dave, I detested JIBA as a cheerleading venue for the most partisan pro-Israel blogs like IsreallyCool, Little Green Footballs, and the neocon Pajamas Media crowd. JIBA then seemed like a clubhouse for a rather insular brand of Anglo-Israeli blogs. There were some blogs I respected like Jewschool, Dov Bear and others, but they were the exception that proved the rule. Also, the sole sponsor was the Jerusalem Post which I thought also limited the competition and pigeon-holed it ideologically.
The new JIBA is run by a committee and Aussie Dave has handed it off to them, a good thing. While this committee has continued to make some decisions that I find unfortunate, the chief organizer, Chaim Rubin, is totally open to doing things differently in the future. Unfortunately, I discovered the new JIBA too late to make any meaningful contribution to it. But if Chaim lets me know next year when preparations begin, I’d be willing to play a role in making it a truly inclusive and diverse competition.
I encourage all my readers to visit the site and look over the categories with an eye to nominating blogs you especially like. I’ve been nominated in one category and have myself nominated another blog or two. I’d like to see more progressive blogs nominated in more categories. I’d rather they hadn’t created categories like “Left-Wing Blog” (please call us “progressive” or “liberal” in future) or “Pro-Israel Advocacy Blog” (and how do we distinguish that from “Right-Wing Blog”?) since they are so ideologically charged, but I’m hoping that this can be reworked next year.
You can tell that I’m ambivalent about JIBA this year. It’s something that has possibility and has improved. But it isn’t there yet. I’m saying it’s worth supporting as a show of good faith toward what we hope it can become in the future.
“In its previous incarnation under its founder, Aussie Dave, I detested JIBA as a cheerleading venue for the most partisan pro-Israel blogs like IsreallyCool, Little Green Footballs, and the neocon Pajamas Media crowd.”
And pray tell, how was it a cheerleading venue for Israellycool (spell it right, for goodness sake), given my blog was invalidated for nominations while I ran the awards?
Thank you Silvertein for this post, because I think I WILL be running these awards next year.
It was a cheerleading venue for partisan pro-Israel bloggers period. You all scratched ea. other’s backs either by nominating each other, winning awards, or hosting the awards. It certainly boosted your site traffic and made more of a name for yourself.
You’re welcome to run them. And I’ll be happy to shout from the rooftops about how messed up your administration of them will be. But this time, there’ll be 20 or 30 progressive blogs writing about your slanted awards. Maybe I ought to get a truly representative group of Jewish bloggers together and create a awards project that will embrace the broad sweep of Jewish blogs instead of your narrow insular view.
You react like Pavlov’s dog. If I say black, you say white. If I’d written here that I really wanted you to return as host of the awards you’d have written that you never intend to do them again. I should’ve used reverse psychology.
U-huh. And why didn’t any progressive blogs complain in the past? Maybe because they WERE included?! You were the only one whining about it because you forgot to nominate yourself.
As for boosting my site traffic, not really. For a few weeks, it was a bit higher, but my site’s traffic is consistently high because my readers enjoy my site. That is the only way to sustain a readership, not gimmicks. And that was never my intention with the JIBs. Once again, you are talking out of your wrinkly white behind.
I didn’t WANT to be nominated in such a slanted competition. And I didn’t nominate my blog this year either though I have nominated other blogs this year.
BTW, I’ve documented at this blog the tremendous preponderance of right wing blogs in the competition when you were running it. Very few progressive Jewish bloggers even KNEW about JIBA when you ran it because you publicized it mainly in the J.Post & among yr blogger chums. If you look at the current iteration of JIBA, there is more ideological diversity (though still not enough).
You ARE a real bluffer, aren’t you? Your site traffic is high? Your own stat counter shows your average daily unique visitor count is 695! That’s lower than mine (I’m averaging around 1,000 over the past 30 days and a bit lower if you avg. the entire period my blog has existed). Now, here you had me thinking you were as popular as LGF!
You, like LGF and the Pajamas crowd attract the type of readers who enjoy your brand of narrow-minded, hardline thinking about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Unfortunately, there do seem to be a lot of them out there though thankfully you all are a distinct minority of the Israeli and Jewish public.
Thanks again for attesting to my readers yr level of emotional maturity.
For a start, they are called the JIBs. Not JIBA.
As for my readership, you are dead wrong. I’m not just singing to the choir, as I suspect you are. Take my friend Esra’a of the Middle East Youth site who is an avid reader (and who does not share many of my views). And there are many others, because I can hold an argument and provide entertaining content. And whoever is respectful, and disagrees in a civil manner is more than welcome. The reason you don’t get much in the way of courtesy from me is the nasty and vitiolic way you have attacked me. I only ever found about this blog after I was alerted to your nasty attacks. Yet you have the chutzpah to whine about the lack of a blogger code of conduct. What a joke!
Feel free to debate me on the facts, because I am pretty confident you would come off second best.
Wow, you have a single Arab reader! Cool!
Why anyone sharing half-way progressive views on this conflict would want to actually read yr blog & take the time to argue with you there is beyond me. Your ideas are so fossilized it’s impossible to have a reasonable discussion. But they’re welcome to it.
You don’t have a clue what’s in my comment threads. I get more response from those who disagree with me than with those who agree.
I call ’em as I see ’em.
Is there a vestige of humanity in you? The day when one of yr readers wishes cancer of the rectum on you so you won’t be able to enjoy sex any longer–that’s the day you can deride me for wishing to exert some control on the monstrous individuals lurking out there in the hardline Kahanist/settler community. But far be it fr. you to have any sense of decency or empathy w. someone like me.
You don’t have the foggiest notion of what the code of conduct IS. It isn’t designed to prevent people from disagreeing with each other as I do with you. It’s meant to discourage people from engaging in anti social behavior online; from using violent or assaultive language, threatening each other or using racism or other such invective in debate.
“our ideas are so fossilized it’s impossible to have a reasonable discussion. But they’re welcome to it.”
Heh. It’s funny seeing the word “fossilized” come from you.
The fact that you can’t see how I could have many Arab readers is not my problem..it’s yours.
As for the code of conduct, I completely understand what it is about. It is a way for you to stop attacks on your character, but allow you to continue your attacks on the characters of others since – as you admit – you “call ‘em as you see ‘em.”
Why are you so dim? Wishing cancer on me is not an attack on my character. It is an attack on my physical person. The code of conduct is not designed to prevent people from disliking or disagreeing with ea. other as we both mutually do.
Since you clearly don’t have anything further to say on the subject that is new or englightening & so enjoy lengthy mud wrestles, I’m turning off your commenting till you cool down a bit and find something else here that ticks you off enough to return.
I love how you amended your comment re: the traffic of your site vis-a-vis mine well after the comment first appeared, not allowing me the right to respond. But this is an old trick of yours, isn’t it? An old trick for an old dog.
But I’ll repeat what I said in my comment section in response to your obnoxious comment:
“Oh gee, do I feel foolish. You have so clearly shown from your comment how you are not a nasty person at all, but rather a kindhearted soul.
BTW, Extreme Tracking shows the traffic average over time. Sitemeter is more accurate for current traffic figures. And you might also want to check out Alexa…”
For what it’s worth, I get higher traffic than you. Definitely not near the traffic of LGF. Deal with it.
Talk about old tricks. One of yrs is a feeble attempt to play on my alleged age as if you’re never going to be my age. BTW, insulting someone’s age as you constantly do is contrary to our tradition which honors age.
Either you’re lying or ignorant. I’ll be charitable & assume you’re just ignorant. So let’s compare our stats:
Israellycool
695 avg. daily lifetime
4,425 last wk.
21,303 last month
Tikun Olam
525 avg. daily lifetime
5,000 last week
29,677 last month
The only stat where you beat me is lifetime daily avg. but at the rate my site is trending compared to yours you won’t be more popular that I in that category either before long.
Care to amend yr earlier statement?
Regarding traffic, my site was experiencing technical problems last week, but is running smoother now. If you really insist on continuing this kindergarten exercise, see Alexa as I already mentioned
This is fun, Dave. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to prove you wrong again. Taking your advice & reviewing Alexa, your site barely beats me in a few categories, but my site is trending upward and yours downward, alas. And if you keep going that way I’ll be superceding you shortly:
Israellycool
% internet users (last 3 mos.) .000315
3 mos. change -30%
Traffic rank (3 mo. avg.) 402,000
3 mos. change -83,000
Tikun Olam
% internet users (last 3 mos.) .000295
3 mos. change +136
Traffic rank (3 mos. avg.) 450,000
3 mos. change +361,000
Hehe…I love how you try to find a way to slant the stats your way. The fact of the matter is you were cited in a number of reports (unustifiably in my view, since as I have shown, you are not one to talk of good onlone conduct), and this is why you have had an upward trend in traffic recently. At the same time, my site has been down alot, yet I’m still well ahead.
Dave: I should hope both of us have been cited in the media as that’s what we bloggers try to do. The NYT interviewed me on the inside pg. of its story about blog harassment. It brought me very little site traffic. The Seattle Post Intelligencer also wrote a story about my Steven Plaut blog assault. How much traffic do you think the Seattle PI brings to your site? Again, very little. That’s all the coverage I’ve gotten so far on this matter. I got much more traffic from Gary Kamiya’s link in his Salon article to my post about John Hagee at the AIPAC conference. I got some traffic when Eric Alterman of Altercation and The Forward linked to my Azmi Bishara posts. I got a little traffic when Jim Besser linked to me in Jewish Week again on AIPAC and a little perhaps when The Forward linked to my outing of Allyson Rowen Taylor. The point is that Tikun Olam doesn’t only get into the media based on Steven Plaut’s harassment. And if you’re not getting into the media as much as I am then you’re doing something wrong. Besides, those Alexa numbers are over a 3 month period & if I’ve gotten a bump from the NYT coverage (which is a false assumption anyway) this happened only a few wks. ago. Nice try, but excuses, excuses.
Saying yr site’s been down is a copout. My site’s been down too. Everybody’s site goes down.
Comments are closed for you on this post. I think 6 in this thread are quite enough for you. Do you ever stop to wonder why I’ve only published 2 comments at yr blog ever & never more than 1 in a thread while you’ve published scores of comments here? Don’t you think you might emulate my restraint?