The Wardman Wire

A Mr “Neil Clark” has won the best UK weblog award. I’m hearing from bloggers for whom I have some respect (but don’t necessarily agree with) that he was running a pretty exotic campaign to win the 2007 award.

I have two hours free on a Sunday afternoon, so …. let’s be nerdy today.

The Clark Campaign for Election to the Best British Blog Award

Ok, here we go. This section is rather long and tedious. Sorry. It gets more amusing when we get the results further down. Skip to “The Results” or “The Post Mortem” if you are short of time or attention span.

The timescales were these:

Nominations for 49 categories ended October 17, 2007.
Voting began November 1, 2007.
Final results announced November 8.

And these were the “me me me” posts on http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/

November 3rd: “2007 Weblog Awards: Vote for Me! (please…)“. One post.

Ken Bell, aka The Exile ,very kindly informs me that this blog has been nominated in the ‘Best UK Blog’ category in the 2007 Weblog Awards. If you enjoy reading this blog, then please go along and cast your vote here. You can vote once every 24 hours. And please ask your friends to vote too!

And an update on the post later: Two posts.

UPDATE: Currently leading the poll is a blogger who, in his own words, supported the Iraq war “100%”. If you don’t want a pro-war writer like Iain Dale to win the prize, then you have the chance to vote for someone opposed the illegal aggression from the outset- and who, before the war started, was one of the few British journalists to openly ridicule the government’s claims that Iraq possessed WMDs. Oh, and someone who said that the “genocide” in Kosovo was a complete fabrication too…

And another update on the post later: Three posts.

UPDATE: Many thanks to all who have voted for this blog so far. We’re now up to 7th and with five days to go I’m sure we’ll continue to make progress. Remember, you can vote every day. Let’s show the warmongers that they can’t have everything their own way!

And another update on the post the following morning: Four posts.

UPDATE: Sunday morning: We’re now up to 6th place. Please keep the votes rolling in!

November 4th: “Weblog Awards Update: Keep the votes rolling in!” Five posts.

Many, many thanks to all who have taken the time to vote for this blog in the Weblog Awards. We’ve now passed the 100 vote mark and are closing in on fifth placed Guy Fawkes. If everyone who has voted for this blog in the last 24 hours or so, does so again, every day until Thursday, we’ve got a great chance of winning: no other nominee has gained so many votes in the last day.
So, please, please, keep the votes rolling in!

And an update on the post later: Six posts.

UPDATE: It’s been a great few hours, and we’re now just 18 votes behind fifth-placed Guy Fawkes, with our share of the vote up to nearly 10%. If we keep this progress up, we can win it! Please keep on voting!

And another update on the post later: Seven posts.

UPDATE: 13.30 Monday. We’ve just passed Guy Fawkes (sorry to do that to you on your day of the year Guy!) and moved into fifth place, just five votes behind the fourth-placed Devil’s Kitchen. Many thanks again to all who have voted for this blog, if we keep this up, we’ll get there by Thursday.

And yet another update on the post later: Eight posts.

UPDATE: 15.15 Monday. We’ve just moved into fourth place, overtaking Devil’s Kitchen, and are closing in on Iain Dale.

November 5th:

Mr Neil found time to post about Vivien Leigh, in between ramping the vote. Excellent to see a real post:

94 years ago tonight, on Bonfire Night 1913, Britain’s greatest ever actress, Vivien Leigh, was born. As an only child, Vivien was constantly reminded by her mother that she was special. Once when she asked why fireworks were being let off on 5th November, she was told ‘it’s for your birthday, darling”.
For those who missed it, here’s my Daily Express appreciation of this wonderful actress, written to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her death in July.

Then we had: “2007 Weblog Awards latest: Up to fourth place“: Nine posts.

Well, we’re firmly established in fourth place now, polling over 12% of the votes and with the third-placed pro-war blogger Iain Dale in our sights. If everyone who has so kindly voted for this blog over the last 24 hours does so again tomorrow and on Wednesday and Thursday, we have every chance of overhauling the leader. Once again, many thanks to all who have taken the trouble to vote, your support is hugely appreciated. You can vote here.

And an update on the post later: Ten posts.

UPDATE: 17.00 GMT Tuesday. We’re now up to 15% of the vote and are now just 100 votes behind the leader. Please keep voting!

And another update on the post later: Eleven posts.

UPDATE: 9.00 Tuesday. It’s been a great night, with our share of the vote up to over 14%. We’re now just 140 votes behind the leader. Please keep the votes coming in, we can win this one!

And yet another update on the post later: Twelve posts.

UPDATE: 21:40. Pro-war blogger Iain Dale, clearly perturbed by the sight of us advancing in his wing mirror, has republished his original post about the awards, which has resulted in a brief surge in his share of the vote. Let’s keep up the pressure on him, so please keep on voting!

November 6th: Shades of Red Rum. Thirteen posts.

Well, thanks to your support, we’re now just 80 votes off the lead in the 2007 Weblog awards, with just over a day of voting to go. Let’s hope the Weblog awards mirror the 1973 Grand National, the classic race where Crisp, having led nearly all the way, was collared in the final strides by Red Rum.
To make sure it does, please keep the votes piling in. (You can vote here)
This one looks like going right to the wire!

And an update on the post later: Fourteen posts.

UPDATE: Tuesday 22.15 GMT. Just passed Iain ‘Spanish Steps’ Dale into third place… just 70 votes off the overall lead.

November 7th: “In the lead!- but still work to do!” Fifteen posts.

Well, after a great night’s voting from those of you based in the ‘New World’, we’ve now pulled clear at the top of the poll, overhauling the long-time leader Kickette. But we can’t afford to relax- the other blogs are sure to pull out all the stops in an attempt to catch up- so it is important that we play- and carry on voting- right up until the final whistle. As I said earlier in the week, if everyone who has voted for this blog does so on every day of the competition, we’ll win. Having done so well to come from last to first, let’s make sure we finish the job! Many, many thanks again for your support!
You can vote here.

And an update on the post later: Sixteen posts.

UPDATE: 19.15 GMT. Well, after a terrific day’s voting our lead is now up to 135. But as I said earlier, there is no room for complacency. To win the award we need the votes to keep coming in right up to the final whistle tomorrow at 10pm GMT, so please keep on voting! And once again, many, many thanks for your support!

And another update on the post later: Seventeen posts.

UPDATE: 21.15 GMT. The website for the weblog awards is working very slowly tonight, probably due to the heavy traffic it is receiving. A few people have written in to say that they are having difficulty in voting and that the site keeps crashing. I hope this is only a temporary problem. I’ll keep the sitation monitored.

November 8th: “Almost there- but no room for complacency!” Eighteen posts.

Well, after another great night’s voting, our lead in the 2007 Weblog awards is now heading up towards the 300 mark. Many, many thanks to all those voted. But even though we have a big lead, there’s no room for complacency, and we still need to carry on voting right up to the deadline in order to guarantee victory. So let’s have one final push! If everyone who has voted over the past 24 hours, does so again today, then we will win! You can vote here

And an update on the post later: Nineteen posts.

UPDATE: 10.15 GMT. Our lead is now 300 votes and we’re now just 67 votes off the 1000 vote figure. Please keep the votes coming in!

The Results

Again on November 8th, the results are announced:

And the self-congratulations start:

What more can I say? Subject to official confirmation, we have won the Best UK blog award in the 2007 Weblog Awards by a very wide margin. Our final vote toll was 1116 votes, compared to second placed EU Referendum on 697 votes, a lead of 419 votes.
Many, many thanks to every single person who voted for this blog, and many, many thanks too to those blogs who supported the campaign. I will be writing a longer post about the award, and posting a full and proper ‘thank you’, later.

And the Update habit continues:

UPDATE: The result in the 2007 Weblog Awards has been officially confirmed. We won it! And we won it by a landslide! You are now reading the Best UK Blog!

Some interesting comments on this post:

From The Exile:

Neil,

We really need to talk about running in tandem next year… You for the UK spot and me for Latin America…

Or why not you for Best Blog? Shit we could go for it. Getting Mexican votes for you if you were running against Americans. Christ, Neil, we could do it!

From the Blackbird

Well deserved! And it’s about time you got some proper recognition. I spent 3 days this week conscious of the times I could vote and did so, as well as many others I know, who all spread the word. How could we not? You are the last of that rare breed — a journalist with integrity. (Matt W: Hmmm !!!!)

From danijela:

Danijela said..

Congratulations! I have visited this blog for the first time having seen news of your victory!

Mostly, your blog seems to be about how readers can vote in the 2007 Weblog Awards. Do you do other stuff too?

From anonymous:

Anonymous said…

Your win shows that there are lots of un-employed socialists with time on their hands to vote in the weblog awards.

The Post Mortem

Then we have a post-mortem, which is an almost Wooster-esque persecution narrative / justification:

Well, five days on from our landslide victory in the 2007 Weblog awards, it’s time for a few reflections.

Good thinking, Batman.

When it was announced that this blog had been nominated for the Best UK blog award, the opposition tried to disparage both me and the award’s organisers.

Persecution complexes always help.

The reason our share of the vote was so low to begin with was I didn’t even know about the award until the second day of the competition, when I received an email from The Exile.

When I last looked, the idea was to find the blogs that people actually liked, not to see who was the best at playing silly-buggers with web polls.

In response to a pseudonymous commenter who asked the question “Neil who” on his blog, a fellow nominee wrote that I was the blogger “who wrote terrible things nobody agreed with”.

I haven’t read the comment, but it may have to do with calling Iraqi translators “Quislings“.

(I wonder incidentally what these “terrible things” are: my opposition to illegal wars of aggression, my support for renationalisation of the railways and the privatised utlities, free care for the elderly and the reintroduction of a top rate of income tax for the very rich?)

I refer the reader to the various posts linked under “Background” at the top of this article.

Five days after the competition ended not a single one of the other nominees for the Best UK blog award has had the decency to email me with their congratulations.

In the light of the campaign documented above, wtf are they supposed to offer congratulations for? The mind boggles.

And when a self-proclaimed liberal-left website posted a note of congratulations to me on winning the award, a nerdy warmongering cyberbully called Francis Sedgemore waded in with some of his black-shirted chums to bully the poster in question to retract the message of congratulations. (The same thing happened today on the website of Chris Paul, with the posting of some highly malicious and defamatory comments about me by “anonymous”)

That is referring to a post by Tyger on Liberal Conspiracy, which was a rapid blog roundup. (Tangent: Tyger has a tale of woe about word-banning comments containing “Cialis”. (Clue: socialist, socialism.)

We also have an intervention from the Exile over at Chris’s blog:

Now, Neil won fair and square. He was the only socialist candidate and he is entitled to the congratulations of the other British left blogs.

Hmmm. ROFL.

What the last week demonstrated was that if we all stick together, we can achieve anything.

So what is my opinion?

Note for the avoidance of unnecessary legal threats: this is my OPINION.

My impression of people who blog about awards they have won more than – say – twice, is that they have cut the outline of a six-foot penis from cardboard, and are waving it around vigorously in the hope that noone will take a sideways look and reveal how shallow it is in actuality.

My opinion of people who post more than – say – twice, in order to puff there own blog in votes for blog awards is to wonder why they apparently need so much help to cut a penis shape out of a piece of cardboard.

Beyond all of that, I just find people who take blog awards at all seriously rather amusing.

And as for writing puff-pieces for your own blog mentioning your own award on the site of a national newspaper – THAT reminds me of university students sending love letters to themselves in the hope of convincing their flatmates that they have a girlfriend.

It’s one thing to run a campaign for amusement. But to do it because you are taking yourself seriously and greeting it as a major victory … is on a level with a political “2 blokes and their dog Spot” movement congratulating themselves that they distributed 4 and a half copies of their newspaper outside a political conference.

Anyone doing this stuff will be treated with derision. Rightly.

Wrapping-up

I have a friend who teaches adult numeracy, and sets “treasure hunts” as the skills of her students improve. I’ll have to get her to use Neil’s nineteen self-promotional posts as an example. It will give him lots of traffic, which is what he wants:

One of the nicest things about winning the 2007 Weblog Award for Best UK Blog is the way that traffic to this site has more than doubled.

And Merry Christmas to all self-appointed über-bloggers out there. Watch out for the revolution – you may just be Internet Kulaks.

If anyone points me to other blogs that ramped the votes to this extent previously or since, I’ll be quite willing to be as critical.

Tags: neil clark, comment is free, guardian, weblog awards

[tags]neil clark, comment is free, guardian, weblog awards[/tags]