Dear Mr Bloggie...

Fourteen years ago someone thought up a bright idea of giving publicity to blogs through a popularity contest.  The contest had a catchy title, the Bloggies.  It worked for a while.  However over the years, the contest has been hijacked by right-wingers and science deniers.  Last year was the final year of a science/technical blog category because the only finalists were climate-science denying blogs.  The Bloggies became a laughing stock at best and have now sunk to irrelevance.

This year Anthony Watts is urging everyone to make the Bloggies an even bigger joke and even less relevant than they were last year (archived here).

Here's an email I sent to Mr Bloggie, host of the Bloggie Awards AKA Awards for Best Climate Science Denying and Conspiracy Theorising Blogs.

Dear Mr Bloggie (I cannot imagine a woman being so foolish :D)

I've looked through your categories and finalists and see that once again you've selected a disproportionate number of right wing science denying blogs focused on climate science denial. They have infected a range of categories, mostly bearing no relation to the subject matter of the denier blogs.

I suggest you just replace all the categories with just three to reflect the preponderance of finalists:

• Most popular anti-science webblog (climate science)
• Most popular conspiracy theory webblog (climate science) 
• Most popular climate science denying webblog

You can then advertise them on wattsupwiththat and be done with it.  

Actually, you don't have to.  Anthony Watts has done it for you.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/04/get-out-the-vote-climate-makes-another-strong-showing-in-the-2014-bloggies/

It looks as if you didn't learn anything from last year's fiasco.  All you've done is disperse the denier blogs across more categories.

Sou.

For the context, here are Anthony Watts' recommendations in bold italics (archived here):

Lifetime Achievement

Small Dead Animals
The Pioneer Woman
Jezebel
JoNova (Jo has quite a body of detailed work)
Family on Bikes

Best Group or Community Weblog

Watts Up With That? (one category WUWT has not won yet)
Blunt Moms
Bonbon Break
Small Dead Animals
Go Adventure Mom

Best Topical Weblog (formerly best sci/tech category)

Wreck of the Week
Doubtful News
CaptainAwkward .com
Climate Audit (no contest)
JoNova

Best Weblog About Politics

Occupy Wall Street
Polite on Society
Small Dead Animals
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (very complete and up to date daily)
American Thinker

Best Canadian Weblog

Savoir Faire Abroad
Three Chickens and a Boat
Small Dead Animals (much more Canadian content than CA this year)
Climate Audit
Family Adventures in the Canadian Rockies

Best European Weblog

Tallbloke’s Talkshop
Chasing the Donkey
Lost in Cheeseland
Invading Holland
The Nomad Mom Diary

Weblog of the Year

JoNova
No Frakking Consensus (Donna has worked very very hard this year on the IPCC)
Quirky Chrissy
Travel Geek Magazine
The Modern Nomad
Watts Up With That?

Don't cheat - ha ha ha

Oh, and while Anthony has learnt how to game the contest, he's urging people not to game the contest, writing at the end of his instructions, given in immense detail (because he knows a lot of his readers are a bit slow):

 9. Spread the word! Twitter, Facebook, mailing lists, friends, comments on other blogs, and most importantly, if you run a blog, I’d welcome a posting on this topic.

10. Remember, while winning is fun, the way you play the game is just as important. Don’t cheat. Don’t encourage cheating, and simply let the chips fall where they may. May the best weblogs win.

There you go, Anthony.  I should be back in your good books now.  I run a blog and I've done a posting on this topic :)


PS If you wonder why I've done a posting on this irrelevant topic, it's because WUWT and other denier blogs are tediously boring at the moment - so there's not much material for HW.