At The Blog Awards

[ Flickr: Slight Orton Effect]

Above: Paul Gilowey of Cape Town Daily Photo taking photos (see the results here) at the 2009 South African Blog Awards. This is about the best photo I took that evening so I share it with you, complete with a slight Orton Effect, for it currently amuses me so.

Regarding the awards themselves: I, unfortunately, did not win and it took me days to process what I witnessed at the awards event. I have been watching the awards every year since they started but this is the first time I was nominated, so it felt a bit more personal. Each year I spend a lot of time contemplating the process as it is tweaked and after this year's event I spent a lot of time thinking about how some of the problems could be addressed.

However my two-week mail and hosting problem that occurred in the middle of this became a huge distraction after the awards as the problem just got worse and worse (it is now resolved - hopefully for good!) and led to me not getting around to posting my thoughts, which I was hoping would open up a constructive debate to which everyone would feel comfortable contributing.

In the meantime, although I was only able to give it my full attention yesterday evening and then realised how bad it was, an all-out war erupted on the Web as people offered their opinions or, rather, hurled abuse at the few who dared to offer a dissenting voice regarding some of the nominees and winners.

I still intend to post my thoughts but, until I can muster enough courage to weather the abusive comment onslaught that will likely result from me posting my completely uninflammatory analysis of how I believe the problems that exist with the awards (although some may argue there aren't any problems) can be addressed, I will not do it. Perhaps I shall do so in a few months when the fever has died down and people are - I hope - feeling more objective and constructive and less rabidly passionate.

In the meantime, if you're interested, you can search for topics and posts related to the "SA Blog Awards" to find various items scattered around the Web or you can see what I expect to be in for by having a look at some of the blog posts, and links off the posts, that Heather Ford wrote. She unintentionally took a bullet, and a scary one at that, on behalf of a lot of people, such as myself, who don't have the fortitude to deal with this sort of thing, and for that I applaud her.

On a happier note, I would like to thank Chris at Huddlemind, as well as others who were so quiet I don't know who they are, for their efforts in putting the awards together. I would also like to thank all my friends and visitors to both this site and brainwavez.org who voted for one of my articles, getting them nominated and then officially, forevermore runners-up in 2009. I appreciate it!