Simple Justice was born on February 13, 2007, after the blog award season of the preceding year. So I really didn’t know much of anything about awards. But we’re here in the thick of things for the 2007 season,
To the extent that I “get it,” these awards serves the useful purpose of getting one’s blog on other people’s radar,so that they will come, read and, if they think you’ve got something to say, read it again another day. When you write day after day, you hope somebody will read. You also hope somebody will see some merit in your thoughts, or better yet create some friction that will generate an interesting discussion.
But in the blog world, there are big one and small ones. Simple Justice is a relatively small blog. There are wittier, smarter, cutting-edgier blogs than Simple Justice. There are blogs whose popularity dwarfs us by far. These are the blogs that win awards.
Some may complain that it will result in stagnation if the same handful of highly popular, well-known blogs win. After all, how can a new blog compete with one that is already so well-known and popular that it’s going to win any internet beauty pageant hands down. While it would be in my interest to join in this complaint, I really can’t.
The most popular blogs are so popular for a reason. They obviously appeal to a broader spectrum of readers, or even the same spectrum but do a much better job of providing readers with something they want to read. That’s how it goes.
Simple Justice has won a couple of kudos, for which I am humbly grateful. We were one of the 10 Best Criminal Law Blawgs from Jamie Spencer’s survey. We were named by a few different blogs in Le Meme Chose. And Anne Reed passed along a Thinking Blogger Award (in tandem with our next-door neighbor, Defending People by Mark Bennett). I was honored by these honors. I was honored just to make a list.
We’ve been nominated for Best New York Blawger and Blawg at Sui Generis. We’ve also been nominated for a 2007 Weblog Award for Best Law Blog. Some blawgs are openly stumping for votes. They really want to win. I’m not quite that shameless (How shameless am I?), plus I don’t think that Simple Justice is really in the running anyway, so there’s no good reason to waste the bandwidth. Blawgs like Above the Law, Quizlaw and Overlawyered have far more readers than Simple Justice, and if popularity dictates the winner, then they should win. And perhaps they have more readers because they are more, ahem, interesting?
Simple Justice was never created for mass appeal. I don’t try to court readers, and don’t present a single-minded agenda that will win the hearts and minds of millions of readers. Some blogs don’t want to make enemies, and thus avoid controversy. Controversy doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t try to create it, as much as don’t avoid it if it happens in the course of making a point. We’ve had some dust-ups here with other bloggers, whose single issue agendas lead them to write things that I believe are very wrong. Sometimes these end up creating some great dialogue. Other times they devolve into crap. A good quality dialogue takes two sides contributing, so I can’t do it alone.
This will drive some readers who don’t agree with me away. While I would rather them stay and make their case, the beauty of blogs is that you can just move on whenever you feel like it. To them, Simple Justice is just a pig, unworthy of their time. I could try to keep them here and become the most popular law blog on the internet, but it would just be putting lipstick on a pig. I would rather just write about the things that matter to me, and if it interests you, helps you or gives you a reason to come back and read again, then it makes it worthwhile. Thanks for reading. Thanks for the nominations. But mostly, thanks for coming back and reading again.
To the extent that I “get it,” these awards serves the useful purpose of getting one’s blog on other people’s radar,so that they will come, read and, if they think you’ve got something to say, read it again another day. When you write day after day, you hope somebody will read. You also hope somebody will see some merit in your thoughts, or better yet create some friction that will generate an interesting discussion.
But in the blog world, there are big one and small ones. Simple Justice is a relatively small blog. There are wittier, smarter, cutting-edgier blogs than Simple Justice. There are blogs whose popularity dwarfs us by far. These are the blogs that win awards.
Some may complain that it will result in stagnation if the same handful of highly popular, well-known blogs win. After all, how can a new blog compete with one that is already so well-known and popular that it’s going to win any internet beauty pageant hands down. While it would be in my interest to join in this complaint, I really can’t.
The most popular blogs are so popular for a reason. They obviously appeal to a broader spectrum of readers, or even the same spectrum but do a much better job of providing readers with something they want to read. That’s how it goes.
Simple Justice has won a couple of kudos, for which I am humbly grateful. We were one of the 10 Best Criminal Law Blawgs from Jamie Spencer’s survey. We were named by a few different blogs in Le Meme Chose. And Anne Reed passed along a Thinking Blogger Award (in tandem with our next-door neighbor, Defending People by Mark Bennett). I was honored by these honors. I was honored just to make a list.
We’ve been nominated for Best New York Blawger and Blawg at Sui Generis. We’ve also been nominated for a 2007 Weblog Award for Best Law Blog. Some blawgs are openly stumping for votes. They really want to win. I’m not quite that shameless (How shameless am I?), plus I don’t think that Simple Justice is really in the running anyway, so there’s no good reason to waste the bandwidth. Blawgs like Above the Law, Quizlaw and Overlawyered have far more readers than Simple Justice, and if popularity dictates the winner, then they should win. And perhaps they have more readers because they are more, ahem, interesting?
Simple Justice was never created for mass appeal. I don’t try to court readers, and don’t present a single-minded agenda that will win the hearts and minds of millions of readers. Some blogs don’t want to make enemies, and thus avoid controversy. Controversy doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t try to create it, as much as don’t avoid it if it happens in the course of making a point. We’ve had some dust-ups here with other bloggers, whose single issue agendas lead them to write things that I believe are very wrong. Sometimes these end up creating some great dialogue. Other times they devolve into crap. A good quality dialogue takes two sides contributing, so I can’t do it alone.
This will drive some readers who don’t agree with me away. While I would rather them stay and make their case, the beauty of blogs is that you can just move on whenever you feel like it. To them, Simple Justice is just a pig, unworthy of their time. I could try to keep them here and become the most popular law blog on the internet, but it would just be putting lipstick on a pig. I would rather just write about the things that matter to me, and if it interests you, helps you or gives you a reason to come back and read again, then it makes it worthwhile. Thanks for reading. Thanks for the nominations. But mostly, thanks for coming back and reading again.
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FYI, I learned of Simple Justice from Jamie Spencer’s 10 Best contest.
Hi,
I agree The most popular blogs are so popular for a reason. They obviously appeal to a broader spectrum of readers, or even the same spectrum but do a much better job of providing readers with something they want to read.
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