Wampum

Sadly I'm afraid I may have hurt rather than helped. Sorry :(

I posted a comment about this on steve gilliard's blog, and it turns out that he hates blog awards! Sigh, so now he has a post up about not supporting them. He did let the comment stand tho, so some might come over and at least give moral support, or at least link to it.

I've also left a comment at feministe. I'm starting to feel sort of like a spammer tho (after only 2 blogs! sigh... I'd never make it in the "enlarge your wee apparatus" business). I'm hoping others will pick up the message and spread it around their blogs and possibly in a comment or two, though.

I'm OK with not doing the Koufaxes again.

First, our kind of work, like Kevin's for the Perranoski, is obviously less useful for many, and Kevin didn't do the work for a Perranoski last year. We saw this in the dramatic fall-off of "give" posts on the nominee blogs in 2005 compared with 2004 and 2003.

Second, our kind of mechanism, deprecating robots and daily multi-clickers and the rest of the garbage, and urging readers to actually read something other than the blog they've been "vote for me" referred from, doesn't reward the top of a narrow shouldered curve of finalists, it rewards a more of a much broader curve of nominees, semi-finalists, and finalists.

Third, we're dysfunctional. Autism isn't a parlor game we can put back in the box after the children go to bed. Other than the other POAs and parents of other profound disabilities, our readers have no idea how pervasive the cost of lifetime care is.

As a corollary, now that Thimerosal has been defeated politically, we may have outlived our shelf life in Democratic/Progressive (opposition) politics, as beating Frist was a lot sexier than extending eligibility to access the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. We may now just be another kind of "Jerry's Kidz", acausally harmed by apolitical agencies, and apolitically apathetic.

Fourth, it's time away from Grace, Sam, Jonah, Kezzie, JD and Bobbie, time away from spouses, time away from paid work, time away from simply the pursuit of an alternate state of consciousness, even the persistantly vegitative.

I'm also OK with doing the Koufaxes again, because I really don't care what passes for being smart, and the best work is always done for itself alone, irresistably.

Building koufax.wabanaki.net as a drupal (5.0 beta 2) was interesting. I've taken down all the polls and most of the support_via_booksellers and other persiflage. I'll use it to collect the prior work, tending towards yet-another-(uncompleted)-blog-book.

Nanette, don't worry - we're well aware of Gilliard's feelings about the Koufaxes. But, sincerely, thank you for trying.

No matter how I try, it's hard not to take the phenomenon of "put up post requesting assistance" = "crickets chirping" personally, though I know I shouldn't. Really. But there's the guilt that I spend hundreds of hours on the awards which, perhaps, should be spent playing with the kids, or making much-needed money, or walking the rapidly aging dog. But then I drop by the blogs of people I really respect, and they, here or there, continuously mention the Koufaxes, and it's clear how much they've become an integral part of what I tend to view as the "thinking" part of Lefty blogosphere. And then I have more guilt, for wanting to actually run the awards without losing money (real or "could be earned".) I swear, the past few years have left me feeling positively bi-polar most of the time during the Koufax months. And frankly, it sucks.

My beloved friend Susie thinks we should just charge a small nominating fee ($5). I've thought a $1 poll tax (waived for anyone willing to vote by email) would cut down substantially on cheating and fund the awards. But I'm sure we'd get a huge amount of pushback for both those suggestions.

Well, I posted about this, and I came here now to do my part and make a donation. Do you still want one? Please let me know.

Whatever you decide to do with the Koufaxes, please know that I greatly appreciate your efforts.

Charles, I saw that link a few hours after I took down the ask. Thank you. As it is, we're still running the Koufaxes, but I just decided to stop outright asking for readers to fund the hard drives, as it didn't seem to make much difference and I was getting depressed.

So yes, we are still looking to replace the drives, even if one at a time ($178 + s/h). I guess I'll put up the post again and just swallow my almost non-existent pride.

Just made my donation, and I hope plenty of other folks do as well. And I say do whatever you feel you need to do to make this process a sane and non-moneylosing one for you. Anyone who bitches about that is cordially invited to create their own damn awards.

Again, thank you for all the work you and Eric and Dwight have done on this.

Speaking as a parent of a child with autism, and a fan of the Koufaxes, your blog is valuable on many, many levels. Do not give up. Hope the foot heals soon.