You may think cotton candy an easy target, what with its’ soft texture and friendly colors, but No! I submit the following list of reasons why you, too, should prefer cotton candy over a thanksgiving dinner:

– It’s an American institution, invented in 1897 in Tennessee and sold by the truckload!
– It is associated with happy childhood memories of exploiting vertically challenged people for entertainment, as opposed to celebrating the first steps in the conquest of a continent.
- There are LESS CALORIES in a serving of cotton candy than there are in that Thanksgiving dinner. Seriously.
– Clean-up of a Thanksgiving dinner makes mothers everywhere resent the entire event, whereas clean-up of cotton candy is easily achieved with a simple garden hose and a pair of earplugs.
– After eating Cotton Candy, you never see people moping around, dreading that 4:00 AM madness at Wal-Mart the following day.
- It is humane, there are NO animals killed during the production of cotton candy!
– 7 out of 10 Turkeys prefer the taste of cotton candy to… wait, my numbers are off. TEN out of TEN turkeys prefer the taste of cotton candy!

Cotton Candy is a year-round, enjoyable treat. It isn’t that heavy, burdensome meal that only comes around once each year. (It only comes once a year FOR A GOOD REASON.)

In short, cotton candy is more humane, better tasting, easier to produce, easier to eat, and just plain more fun.

I hope that next year the Niblets include a nomination for Cotton Candy. Better yet, ditch the Niblets. Who wants corn? Winners next year should each receive a sugary treat. The losers will be caned.

Signed,

Sparky the Clown

I have enjoyed it. There has to be some kind of balance between caring enough to participate, but not caring so much that anyone gets their underwear twisted up over it.

I’m signing off now. After loosely monitoring this thread I came into the discussion late, and I’m not really interested in getting involved in a junior high-style debate over something so petty.

I’m sorry this attempted exercise at fun and camaraderie, i.e., the Niblets, didn’t fulfill that purpose for some. Best of luck to you in the future.

Of the 13 million Mormons, the number of Mormons who regularly frequent LDS-themed blogs probably ranges between 5,000 – 10,000.

Of that number, less than 800 have even voted in the Niblets process. The winner of most categories will have won by receiving only about 100 votes, maybe even less, which makes the significance of a Niblets “win” in just about any category tantamount to being elected president of your junior high, or maybe a junior high club.

So when it comes to big fish in a little pond, we are dealing with a very, very, very small pond indeed.

So why do Niblets at all? This whole thing is meant for fun and camaraderie, it’s not for fame and glory, and it’s a shame if folks can’t recognize that.

If anyone blogs for the purpose of getting credit for their “time to attend the events, careful notetaking, thoughtful drafting,” and yadda yadda, they should probably take up journalism or at least a more serious endeavor. I struggle to understand how anyone could be so attached to the expectation of getting “credit” and “recognition” for engaging in a hobby, provided gratuitously to the public, that they would turn an occasion for fun and camaraderie into an occasion filled with griping, bickering, cliquish/exclusionary behavior, denigrating others’ work and blogs, and general weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this, some people take their blogging really, really, really, really, really seriously. So seriously that they’re willing to be insulting and dismissive and rude to others if they don’t get the “credit” and “recognition” they think they deserve . . . for a hobby . . . offered to the public gratuitously . . . only read by about 5,000 – 10,000 people tops . . . less than 800 of which even care enough to vote . . . with most winners getting around only 100 votes or less.

Are we back in junior high again?

I think that your comment about a different readership is totally valid, and as I mentioned I think a lot of other people had a lot of other great ideas that would help resolve some of the concerns others expressed. I’m just trying to come to the defense of some blogs who are being criticized for just being what they are.

That’s an entirely unfair characterization of anything I’ve said, or anything I can remember being said by others who have noted problems. It’s comments like that, that make the Niblets a trainwreck — I know my replying is tantamount to staring at the gore, but I can’t tear my eyes away. Every time I think this can’t get worse, it does.

What SSB does, it does well. It’s not trying to be Thanksgiving dinner, and as great as Thanksgiving dinner can be, I don’t want it for every meal. These blogs do have value.

What I take away is that some people aren’t satisfied with how the categories ended up working out, and that is fine, but that doesn’t need to translate into trashing or dismissal of every blog that isn’t a scholarly journal.

But I also adore the bloggernacle, and honestly, until this moment I didn’t even realize that it was anymore strictly defined than “a collection of Mormon blogs” which SSB and Dooce and CJane would all certainly fit into. I think there have been some great suggestions made for further definition which would solve a lot of the problem.

I guess I just don’t understand the threat SSB and Dooce and CJane pose to the “True” Bloggernacle blogs. They’re not trying to offer the same things, what they are offering are spectacular sometimes and never something that’s “bad”, and they are a part of the larger Mormon internet community. When I read the category title “Best Individual Blogger” I only thought which blogger had the posts I thought were the best, whether that was on an individual blog or a group blog. After reading the thread, I really like Ardis’ thought that the blogger’s participation in the community should be taken into consideration, but that was never included in the rules, so as for this go round that perspective is no more or less valid then me liking TAMN despite her blog not trying to establish community.

I also don’t really understand the philosophical difference with blogs that run ads, but I suppose that’s another discussion for another day.

When exactly do the polls close?

Thank you.