If you wish to read about The Intellectual Blogger Award - read my page on it. This blog post describes how the award came into existence and the history behind it (only if you're really interested - it's a long post; you've been warned).
Krish Ashok has been kind enough to tag me with the "Thinking Blogger Award" leading my brain's CPU to more and more convoluted processing cycles. Being a newbie blogger, with just about a 100 posts to his credit, I was, to say the least, flabbergasted.
But the tag and the rules really put me in thinking mode. I'll try to describe them chronologically, i.e., as they entered my mind.
First, I was inspired to blog by my friend Asuph, who's such a long time blogger that he seems to have overgrown the habit to quite an extent. I'd seen him getting this award, and saw whom he nominated. All veteran bloggers. Surely, if this is now coming to me, the caliber of the award itself must be diluting over a period of time?
That is to say, any award list that restricts itself to a certain number, would retain a certain authenticity. What if the Nobel awards were being given in this form - everyone who gets one, gets to award 5 others? Wouldn't the caliber of the award degrade over time? Yes, definitely (what I think).
My conclusion was that, yes, this will dilute the caliber of the awards to a great extent, but at the same time, it will enable those 'never-to-be-found-gems' also gain the limelight, correct? I mean, in such a scenario, Einstein will get the Nobel prize not for the photoelectric effect, but for the General Theory of Relativity! So I resisted this opposition in my mind.
Second, the description of the award, the core if you may call it, says that this is all about '5 Blogs That Make Me Think'.
Well, there are a lot of blogs out there that make me think. For example:
- Why did the blogger write this post?
- Why did the blogger think that writing this review (of book/music/movie/whatever) is worthwhile spending 30 minutes of his/her time, and wasting 10-15 minutes of my time, if ultimately he/she thinks it is crap?
- Why does the blogger think that duplicating content of what's already being 'logged' - such as night show jokes, etc. would draw me to his/her blog?
- Why are email forwards turning into blog posts?
So, there are a lot of bloggers out there, who make me think. Is that really the driving principle behind this award? The award title is "Thinking Blogger Award" and the description is "5 Blogs That Make You Think". IMHO, I think that itself is not consistent with the objective - there are blogs that make you think, and those blogs do not necessarily denote bloggers who you think are thinking.
Again, I relented. Disregarding the title and reading the content of what the award-starter wanted to start, I realized that this objection is also not in the spirit of the award. Now came the deciding question: Do I want to get along with the flow of the river, or do something about it to address these discrepancies?
Like I've said in About Myself, I'm new to blogging and am afraid. But I've decided to jump into the waters of the blogosphere, and launch my own award. I wondered about Indianizing the title for the award, such as "Guru Blogger", but it seems too mediocre. Also, the award should be global in its true spirit. Thus, with no more fanfare, I launch the "Intellectual Blogger Award".
Update 13th July 2007: Restricted topic strictly to blogging, and made a few clarifications. I would be glad if anyone wishes to contribute a smaller graphic for use with this award.
Update 18th July 2007: Added a smaller graphic, and increased the maximum nominations from 3 to 5. Note that it is not necessary to tag 5 - you can tag only 1. Please use your discretion. So that we may all enjoy quality blogs!
Update 27th July 2007: Created a separate page for the actual award, and edited but retained this blog post for historical reasons.
Related posts:
Thanks Mahendra. do you know this is the first time that I have had an acknowledgment from any Indian blogger that my blog is good? I was not nominated for the Bloggy awards which are Indian. I had applied myself under ‘new blogs.’ Well, as I wasn’t even nominated there was no question of winning.
I have won a blogger award internationally though, and that is the blogger of the day. I had applied for that.
But after the bloggy experience I decided that its not worth it. For no reason one hopes and then the hopes are dashed. I am not pretending that nominations don’t matter to me, after all everyone wants recognition. But now the desire for that has decreased and I am satisfied with the fact that I have regular readers. Its the comments I get that keep me going, that motivate me. And nominations are not that important.
about nominating others, yes, I shall definitely do it, maybe in 4–5 days.
Thanks again.
Any kind of award bothers me. Although awards, in general, are suppose to be objective, subjectivity always creeps into it. Every blogger knows if they are being true to themselves and bringing forth concepts, ideas and logic to their focus. I like your use of aggregaters as a separate category from just recyclers. The only true award is one that a blogger can bestow upon himself/herself for being true to themselves and not using gimmicks to gain readers (as an unquiet mind once told me.) And only he/she know if they are being true.
My two bits.….….
Hi there!
I’m surprised to see my blog linked here for the “Intellectual Blogger Award”.
I learned of this through my Blog Stats page.
Thanks for the appreciation, sincerely. I’m not sure about how familiar you are with Rand’s philosophy, but it is the philosophy I live my life by–very competently and happily, may I add–and which is the guiding theme of practically every article I write on my blog. Typically, my experience has been that anything related Ayn Rand is derided and smeared outright. Her ideas are still very radical today. Therefore, I am very happy to receive your support.
Yeah, I agree that subjectivity takes over when it comes to evaluating blogs! But I don’t mind that…as long as people don’t nominate their good friends!
I know one blogger who uses many gimmicks and also produces fantastic content, but I agree that this combination is not the norm. He calls himself Engtech. He runs a very good blog…no this is not for the intellectual blogger award as I guess we are restricting ourselves to Indian bloggers.
MondayMorningPower: Thanks for the two bits! Subjectivity is what brings richness and diversity, right? And everyone who thinks, and takes the effort to write meaningfully, deserves a pat on the back! Lastly, it is through such chains that we discover rare gems!
Ergo: I would say I’m an amateur with Objectivism. Please do take up this support and extend it to other bloggers you think deserve it!
Finally, Nita: no, we are not restricting ourselves to Indian bloggers. Sorry if I created that mis-impression!
[…] by Ergo on July 13th, 2007 An Unquiet Mind has been generous in awarding me the Intellectual Blogger Award. I’m pleased. Here is how he describes the award and what qualifies its recipients. This […]
[…] Blogger award I must thank Mahendra for tagging me for the Intellecual Blogger Award. I must confess however that I found it very difficult to name three bloggers who I think are […]
I think Nita deserves to be tagged for this award because she stimulates the reader into thinking about issues which would normally not strike the average person (me,for example).After reading some of her blogs,I frequently tend to think through issues which would otherwise never occur to me in my routine existence. This, in my opinion, is what every good blog should do — which is, to awaken the reader from a mundane frame of mind into some attempt at critical thinking.Way to go Nita, and all you great bloggers!
Padmini: thanks for supporting my nomination for Nita. You describe it very well — “awaken the reader from a mundane frame of mind into some attempt at critical thinking” — yes, I fully agree!
btw I have put up that image of the Intellectual blogger award. I reduced it slightly though.
btw, I got tagged for the thinking blogger award but as you are already tagged for i won’t nominate you.
Nita — thanks for putting it up on your site. I noticed that it does not link to anything. It can link to your post on the award. Well, now I’ve created a separate page for the award, which is not as long as this post. You can also update the link in your post to it if you like. Apologies for the changes!
I’ve also edited this post to reflect the creation of the new page. Hope this makes it more convenient and easy-to-follow. Finally, thanks for the smaller graphic…as you can see I’ve stolen it from you as another graphic for awardees to use!