I realized the other day that there was a featured blogger on my page, and then I started to think about the people who also have their blogs posted on the front page. I thought about the criteria that each post and the featured blogger was judged by in order to be selected. I realized then that I had no idea what it was.
The blogs on the front page are chosen according to the editor's liking, which could be taken for granted in itself, and then there is the featured blogger, which had no criteria listed. I checked out each of these posts and found similarities in them. Well-written, minimal grammar and punctuation errors, thoughtful, and controversial elements were apart of each.
This wasn't the most disturbing part about it though. I was wondering how ethical it is to post these blogs and the featured blogger during a contest like the scholarship. Obviously, having those posts on the front page leads to more clicks on their blog, and then the featured blog is located on the right of almost every page besides the one I'm typing on right now. How is that fair, especially when we're given no specifications as to how these few are selected to be read more than others?
I mean if this was a presidential election (yes, always use presidential elections for examples of contests because it makes your point seem important), and one running mate was just selected out of nowhere to be on the cover of People and named "Man of the Year" when there were people who had the exact same achievements....or if he was just chosen because editors liked him (or her), wouldn't that be unethical?
What makes a post more important than another? Why should people who have never been on the front page or featured blogger have to work harder to be read if they're writing in the same style as the others? Am I doing something wrong here?
If there was something for us to go by, something for us to fill out in order to be the featured blogger or on the front page, or click something for us to try and be considered--that would be more appropriate than just being plucked out of the sea.
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Dead On! thanx for this one, News FLASH
I've just been flashed.
Well, I clicked on your post. Hopefully that increases your standing in the contest. :)
Yea, I just wanted people to think about it, so we can maybe come up with a better idea as to how those bloggers and posts are selected.
I agree. This is a recurring trend among teen contests, scholarship apps, even college applications. The chooser does the picking, and, sometimes it is not fair at all.
It really isn't. Who wins is usually based on the bias of the company, like for scholarships. For one, I read a scholarship that was supposed to be open to all majors, yet the winners of each previous years were all biology/chemistry related. Nowhere on the company's website did it say that science was the specific category. In fact, it said quite the opposite, yet the results proved different.
I find this kind of offensive because I am the featured blogger, and here is the thing; I probably still will not win the contest. Why? because there are over 500 users on here, most of which are on more often than I becuase I am so busy. And those bloggers which write well I think should have their blogs advertised because the traffic to this site is so high. Really good blogs sometimes get lost in the mix of 30 new pages of blogs a day. No, there is no criteria for why they pick what gets on the front page becuase there cannot be. There are so many different blogs on different subjects that there is no way to say this is the specific type of blog we are looking for. But I can say its usually something insightful and usually political/business/media in nature versus stuff that should be on people's my spaces.
I understand where your concern lies, but check out the number of reads on my blogs, and then everyone eles . . . I actually have a lot less because no one wants to click on mine becaues I am the featured blogger and they seem to think because of that I am going to win...so not true. I can tell you who is in first if you want to know and its not me.
It may not help you win, but it definitely helps the reads on your blog. What concerns me is that there is no criteria to be the featured blogger. You just have to be *picked.* That's what I think is unfair. There should be a selection process.
And as far as the blogs on the front page, I simply think there should be a better process than because the editors like it. It's just not fair.
Who is number one?
What process do you propose? anyway, art told me once, if I could find the link where he posted the comment i would copy and past, that they are doing the contest differently next time but that they just cannnot change it in the middle. Only five people can win, and so if you are not a winner you can reenter next semester with the new rules. They ar going to have some sort of a voting proceess by users, I am not quite sure of the details.
Here is the other thing, front page blogs are also chosen by how many reads that specific thread has gotten. Saya there are ten post that day who have gotten 40 reads. Well they can only put like 3 on the front page, so out of the 10 most popular they pick the three they like best to advertise. I am not claiming that is exactly the way they do it, but that is kind of how I perceive it.
And number one is nolies32fouettes BY FAR! or at least it was, but I think that because this person was so far ahead in the beggining that even if they posted nothing till the end of the contest, they would still win.
You're taking this too seriously.
On a related note, the winner should be picked on not only based on points earned but based on the quality of posts.
I don't think I'm taking this too seriously. A lot of writers agree with me, and I wrote it after talking to quite a few of them.
I know the winner should be based on quality of posts. That's the point. This post wasn't about that at all. It was about how the site helps certain bloggers and not others.
That is one thing I will agree on. A lot of users over blog an post like fifty million worthless posts just to get points for posting them when I might post one really good one every day, but they arte going to win becuase they have more points than I, but then again that is why art said they are changing it next time.
I disagree with some of your comments, and agree with others, but I do not want anyone to have a bias against me because I am the featured blogger. It is a great honor and I am glad it was bestowed on me but at the same time I do not want anyone to be mad at me because I enjoy it, does that make sense? its not like I made myself the featured blogger and I think I have the right to enjoy that status while I still can, becaues I have never really been feature anything, and its a nice feeling to have, especially with all of the problems I have had with my family etc . . . it makes me feel likes maybe what I have to say is worth something and that my parents were wrong about me ( they said I will never be anything more than worhless trash).
Why would I be mad at you? I'm mad at the system. I have nothing to be mad at you for. Yes, I do think it's unfair, a little unethical, and I do have my opinion on it. That's the only thing, and I never said you made yourself the featured blogger or that you think you deserve it. Of course you can enjoy it, you should! This post was just to alert progressiveU that some users are unhappy with the way things are selected/featured.
No NO! I was not insinuating that you were mad at me. I just get the feeling sometimes that people in general harbor a little of resentment towards me because I am the featured blogger and are worried that becauseI am then I will when so they do not want to read of comment on my posts etc . . . so I just wanted to make it clear how I feel. Goodness no I was not interpreting your post that way! sorry!
Relax. It's just a contest. Featuring someone or specific blogs doesn't make that person or those blogs any better.
It's just a way for the staff to publicize some things that they find interesting, and you can still do well without being featured.
So basically, get over it and just post.
I never said it makes their blogs better. I said that it makes more people read their blogs, and there obviously is something special about them if they are chosen just because the editor *likes* them.
I was never under it, either. Thanks though.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis