Apology Owed

Well, the end of the year comes with a resounding "clang" for The Garlic.

Alas, our efforts to gain a berth in the 2008 Weblog Awards have gone unrewarded.

The Finalists were announced last evening, and, in the category of 'Best Humor Blog', The Garlic was nowhere to be found.



Initially, I thought - "We Wuz Robbed".

For, on the final day of nomination voting, it appeared The Garlic was sitting pretty, seemingly, racking up the second most "votes".

We use "votes" in quotes due to discovering this morning, via Kevin Aylward, of the Weblog Awards, those calls to "hit the little "plus" icon (+)" were not calls to vote for The Garlic, rather they were "Me Too's", which counted for nothing, or very little, basically just endorsing the nomination (For, the Weblog Awards were looking to trim down on duplicate nominations).

"Those aren’t votes, they’re “me too” indicators. The idea is to minimize the number of duplicate nominations. It doesn’t always keep people from nominating a site over and over, but it helps. The directions in the nominating post are pretty clear. Sites with one nomination are evaluated the same as sites with several “me too” votes."

Got that?

Going back and looking on the Weblog Award site, at the FAQ's, etc, we did notice this;

The number of nominations a blog receives is irrelevant. One nomination is enough...

Rather than add a "me too" nomination for a site you're encouraged to use the "+" icon to indicate your preference for nominees. The "+" ratings are one extra piece of information the finalist selection panel can use to help generate the finalist slates in each category.

See, hitting that little icon, registering your "Me Too" was only "one extra piece of information" and not an actual vote that counted for anything.

In the 'Best Humor Blog', 8-of-the-Top-10 "Me Too" getters did not get chosen as a Finalist.

All I had to do, quietly, was nominate (or have someone else do it) The Garlic, and kick back until they went through the nominations, leaving The Garlic's fate, as it were, in the hands of the judges.

There was no need to ask you, our loyal readers, to take a minute and jump on over to The Weblog Awards, to vote for The Garlic, when, as noted above, you were not, in fact, voting for The Garlic.

I wasted your time.

For that, a most grande "Lo Siento" ... A thousand-and-one pardons ...

Should The Garlic enter, or be entered, into any award programs in the future, we will make certain - absolute crystal clear - what-is-what, how it works, what is required, before we ask for your valuable time, regardless of how many few seconds it may be ...

And, in the end, it is your visits, and readership, that is reward enough.