pre-conceived ideas and generalizations
Plasticbag: On the Geography of the Bloggies... has generated a lot of heat. The subject can be expanded to cover many other awards and 'best of...' lists and even my our daily life.
Mercurial points out that "certain people do not like to be lumped with their politically divergent neighbors" but it is Guide to Ease who gets it right: "The discussion is inherently political, so don't even try to propose a categorization scheme and state that it is more correct."
Adding to the mess: Brazil has the 2nd biggest blogging community after the U.S. yet it seems Brazilian bloggers had a hard time been nominated - maybe there aren't any worthy, i don't know. But, in my case, a Gay Brazilian blogging from New York on no specific subject - if it were left up to me, none of the categories fully represent my intentions.
We can discuss this forever and never agree on anything - awards rules are set by whoever is giving the award - and as with the Nobel, the approach should be that you don't lose the prize, only win it .
"Currently [the Bloggies are] organised roughly like this:Being classified and restricted by a classification does not make many people happy.
* Best Asian
* Best American
* Best Antipodean (Australia and New Zealand)
* Best Canadian
* Best European / African
* Best Latin American
There seem to be a few problems with his grouping to me - firstly there's no category for the Middle East, and I think this year that's going to be a more obvious omission than ever given Salam Pax and all the webloggers around Iraq and Israel. Secondly, having separate categories for Antipodean, Canadian and American weblogs, but not one for British/Irish ones seems rather random considering that both Canada and Australia/NZ have much smaller populations in general and smaller weblogging communities in particular than the UK and Ireland. And finally, the grouping of Europe with Africa seems to make the possibility of Africa weblogs becoming seen rather unlikely."
Mercurial points out that "certain people do not like to be lumped with their politically divergent neighbors" but it is Guide to Ease who gets it right: "The discussion is inherently political, so don't even try to propose a categorization scheme and state that it is more correct."
Adding to the mess: Brazil has the 2nd biggest blogging community after the U.S. yet it seems Brazilian bloggers had a hard time been nominated - maybe there aren't any worthy, i don't know. But, in my case, a Gay Brazilian blogging from New York on no specific subject - if it were left up to me, none of the categories fully represent my intentions.
We can discuss this forever and never agree on anything - awards rules are set by whoever is giving the award - and as with the Nobel, the approach should be that you don't lose the prize, only win it .
