Well, it is that time of year again. Blog awards. Time to honor your favorites in many categories.
The way it works is that we start with nominations. The blogs that get the most nominations wins a spot in the voting contest. From then on it’s a horse race to see how many blog readers can vote once each day to determine the winner.
Last year, WUWT won “Best Science Blog”. I certainly didn’t expect it. Neither did many others. It made a few people angry. It was funny to watch.
This year, I’m feeling that Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit is more deserving of that award than WUWT for two reasons.
1. He got a bum deal in 2007, CA would have won had it not been for a security hole in the voting system
2. He’s made some tremendous strides this year, particularly in the area of Yamal and getting some headway in data access through FOI and dogged persistence.
If you don’t like those choices, some other worthy up and coming climate science blogs are:
The Air Vent – Jeff Id
The Blackboard – Lucia
Some other favorites of mine in other categories are:
Small Dead Animals – Kate (Best Canadian Blog)
The Reference Frame – Lubos Motls (Best European Blog)
While I can offer a couple of my own favorites, you folks nominate whomever you want. Here’s the page to nominate for Best Science Blog:
http://2009.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-science-blog/
And here is the page for categories for general nominations:
http://2009.weblogawards.org/nominations/
Note that you must submit both the blog URL as well as the blogg RSS feed URL this year, not sure why.
They say:
To nominate a blog you need to leave a comment on this entry. Your comment should contain the name of the blog, the main URL for the blog, and (if possible) the URL for a RSS/Atom feed. For example:
Wizbang
Or…you can just skip all that and use their little plus sign icon for nominations already in place: 
To submit other nominations:
For Climate Audit the URL is:
http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?feed=rss2
For WUWT the URL is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/feed/
To find the RSS feed location on other blogs, just look for something that says “RSS” or RSS Feed” or something like that and copy the link URL into your nomination form.
Whomever you nominate, thanks for participating.
I hereby nominate Steve McIntyre for a Nobel Prize, a *real* one, not the wanna-be one Al Gore got.
Anthony
I am a big fan of CA, but it has a narrower appeal than WUWT. I don’t think CA can win any longer because of its more technical slant. I actually learned of your work because I was on CA every day a few years ago, but I can’t keep up with the details any longer.
If you recommend CA, it will split the vote and neither you nor Steve will win. I suggest that you not push for CA. I am going to vote for WUWT. You cover a lot of ground here and it is a terrific site.
Somewhat reluctantly, I agree with JohnH.
Steve McIntyre’s blog has stopped being a blog. It is now a fully-fledged establishment science site. It kept the flame of true science alive alone during the dark days when no one would listen to the truth, and now we can just start to see other scientists begin to take up the torch as well. It has been a long, hard fight, and it is not over yet.
I also second Toto’s point – in fact I have said it several times before. Rarely has a Nobel winner done more for science than Steve’s contribution.
The votes are pouring in for WUWT on the nomination page, however, the nominations that are filling up are technically incomplete because they do note have the RSS feed on them. It would be a shame to lose because of this hanging chad business.
Anthony, are you trying to influence our votes? <;)
There is not even a fair contest…
From Bad Astronomy (Second Science Blob) today:
Pray this doesn’t get passed
..I was going to write about how Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and John Kerry (D-MA) were trying to somewhat slimily slip a provision into the health care bill about paying for prayer-based health services, but then wouldn’tyouknowit, Steve Novella (who apparently does not need to sleep or eat or breathe) beat me to it. Besides his take-down of the odd and wholly unrealistic beliefs of Christian Scientists, I’ll note that is has been pretty definitively proven that prayer doesn’t work in healing. So not only is this provision unconstitutional, it’s just an all-around bad idea.
November 6th, 2009 12:00 PM Tags: John Kerry, Orrin Hatch, prayer
by Phil Plait in Alt-Med, Antiscience, Piece of mind, Politics | 15 Comments »
I nominate for the 2009 Weblog Awards:
Climate Audit
http://www.climateaudit.org/
A blog that I read and refer to every single day(much like WUWT).
I second what Dodgy Geezer said:
“Steve McIntyre’s blog has stopped being a blog. It is now a fully-fledged establishment science site.”
I agree about Steve’s blog. It is great, but impenetrably dense in technical details that are out of reach for the average layperson. That said, he has made some great contributions. But I prefer WUWT because of the accessibility of the writing style, the wide range of subject areas, and the frequency of postings. Those are what keep me coming back.
Keep up the great work Anthony. Whether you “win” or not, we are all winners for having had access to your work here.
I am in agreement with most here. I think CA and the others you mention are very valuable, and I wish not to detract from this value and would like to proclaim my immense appreciation for what they do and their outstanding contributions. Thank you all!!!
With that said, I still believe that WUWT simply brings it all together into perhaps the most valuable climate and science blog available on the Internet today. WUWT and its participants should shout out to CA, Jeff Id, Luca, Kate, Lubos, Marc Morano, and the rest (many I haven’t mentioned) for their tremendous contributions as well! They are all great!!!
Go WUWT!!!
Thanks for the mention Anthony. It’s a tough call between CA and WUWT. I love the constant high quality content here and spend hours digging into the nuances of CA stuff.
It’s fantastic to see the continued growth of WUWT. My guess is your readership is so large even if you demand nobody vote for WUWT you still might win. Skeptics think for themselves after all.
Well i have to agree as well, Steve’s blog is great but difficult for the most of us, and what’s it without a spokesman, an anchor to bring the news, to translate the breakthroughs that Steve and his companions have made in the past 12 months?
As for Phill Plaith, he should stick to Astronomy and Space travel, he is good at that. Being sceptical does not require to denounce prayer and paredolia because it focuses on things that should not be even near to science en technology.
Looks like Australias primer minister has lost it. Poor guy….!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735769.htm
He seems to have the education of a 14 year old! maybe someone should direct him to CA or even here!
Prayer works in some types of healing — it is called the placebo effect — or mind over matter — whatever you call it; it does work.
lol, whoever nominated Charley Johnson cracked me up! To those who don’t recognize the name of that nutbag, don’t worry about it. Those who do will get the joke.
I voted for the strong horse, WUWT!
You do a service by translating Climate Audit’s findings so they are more easily understood. Wading through the technical detail is often difficult.
Anthony,
Don’t sell yourself short.
Thanks for the advice Anthony. And thanks for fellow Canadian skeptic Stephen McIntyre leading the cause of real science. I am glad Stephen is doing his work but I do go to your blog everyday, if not several times a day as a springboard to everything else. You will have my vote.
I’m voting for this site – its so full of the science that actually matters that I could burst. In fact, I have burst. Sorry!
It would be good if there were two categories for science blogs: one that makes science accessible (WUWT) and another that does ground-breaking science (CA). I am not sure who to vote for because it’s apples and oranges, and both are important.
Is climateprogress regarded as a science, political, or propaganda site?
WUWT should not be nominated because of the large amount of pseudo-science peddled.
Besides the great content, I like the list of links. So I always come here first. I read what’s new on this site and then use the links to check out my other favorites, such as AMSR-E, Solar Cycle 24, ICECAP, CA and Lucia’s site.
I was a bit impatient and got your nomination in a couple days ago ~ it’s the third nomination on the science blog listing. Be careful if using the + sign; the one for my nomination is below my name. The nomination comments don’t line up cleanly.
Why WUWT? It covers so much in varying levels of depth; more of a broad based appeal.
This was the final result from last year’s “Best Science” vote: click
If we don’t all pull together in the same direction, Phayngula — a truly vile blog run by a truly vile individual — could win.
I read Climate Audit daily. But look at the results. It’s very specialized, so it’s not followed by nearly as many readers as WUWT.