King of the Blogs Tournament: Week 6 Judging

For the last time, all hail King Jon of Personal Trainer - the first of the KotB contestants to retain his crown for three weeks and be retired to the Hall of Kings. Or Elba, or wherever Nick's sticking him.

This week we have three brand new contenders vying for the throne. For some reason, I feel like I'm Carolyn on The Apprentice getting ready for a boardroom smackdown. Wouldn't that be fun? Hmm...

But now, on to the rulings.

Overall Blog/Design

In the Outer: Hmm... Blogger template. My main complaint with standard Blogger templates (as well as standard Typepad ones, among others) is that it lacks the kind of distinctiveness and personality that I like to see for a contender to rule the blogosphere. If The Bloke here wants to make his voice heard, perhaps a little work to distinguish his look from all the others would be a good move. However, as Blogger sites goes, this template is simple, uncluttered and pleasant. The colors are pleasant - I go for blues, greens and purples any day. The sidebar text is a good size with the exception of most of the blogroll/aggregator lists, they're a tad on the eyestrain size, but since the lists themselves are so long, it's not as unbalanced as it could look. Speaking of looking unbalanced, I find myself listing to the right a bit while viewing the page. I'm pretty sure that was intentional - the graphics in the right column are wider than anything in the left column, but I'm not sure how well it works for me. Other than the design stuff, I see we have Haloscan comments and trackback (a plus), searchable archives (another plus), good profile and "50 things about me" info to make us feel like we know a bit about The Bloke. Except his name. But that's OK, I'm semi-anonymous here myself. I can dig that. Overall, In the Outer gets a 4 - I like what I see here.

Radical Centrist: First off, using my mother-in-law's computer and Internet Explorer, the header graphic appears to want to repeat itself just as the main content column begins - looks like a glitch of some sort. Not a huge deal, just a little bit less slick and professional looking than the Radical Centrist here intends. The layout itself is streamlined and easy on the eyes, neutral colors with the only real punch coming from the word "Radical". Comments and trackback enabled, check. No search feature, and no indication of whether this Radical Centrist person is male or female. Except that we know that the Radical Centrist is also Bird from Bird's Eye View, and there's a sketch in the sidebar on that site that leads me to believe that Bird is male. Other than that, we know nothing about R.C. here, and that gives me no context as a reader for his writing. I like to know something about the person I'm reading - age, gender, country of origin, religion, profession, interests, something - so I can understand where the opinions I'm reading are coming from. Never underestimate the importance of an "about me" link. Radical Centrist gets a 3.

Dawn Xiana Moon: I'm intrigued by this - Dawn has set up a blog here that integrates well with her overall website. Everywhere I look here, Dawn's personality and interests shine through. To really be part of the "community" of the blogosphere, I'd make some suggestions - add a blogroll (there are a few blogs included on the "links" page, amidst other sites, but it's not really prominent)... and add trackback capability. As one who reads other blogs and references things I read on them, I like trackback because I can let the other blogger and his/her readers know that I've written something nice about the post elsewhere, or expounded on the idea, or just continued the "conversation" at my place. Not everyone uses it, but it's a good option to give other bloggers. The comments feature amused me - it appears to have been a French-language plug-in aimed at musicians with websites to allow folks to submit comments on a song. Nice adaptation. I'd like to see a search feature for the archives - Google has a piece of code you can snag for free from their website, if need be. Despite the little nagging things that I don't see, what I do see is plenty about Dawn, who she is and what she thinks... and I like it. Randomness gets a 4.

Submitted Post

In the Outer: An excellent essay about Westerners' feelings of cultural superiority and the Biblical concept of showing mercy to the poor. I was impressed with The Bloke's writing - except for one sentence that appears to have missed the grammar proofreading (and kind of surprised me, right in the middle of such a well-written piece) - emphasis is mine:

Perhaps, all these busy activity and speech only serve to camouflage our true state: we are of all cultures, the most unfree and poverty-strickened.

Hmm... Is "strickened" a word? (I don't know about "unfree" either... but I get what you mean.) Otherwise, a fine piece of writing, and thought-provoking to boot. The Bloke's submitted post gets a 4.

Radical Centrist: Beautiful job. This political post is superbly crafted - it lays out the scenario, makes its points well, and stays true to its voice and purpose throughout. R.C. gives us some meat to chew on, prepared by a good chef with a flair for proper seasoning. This submission earns a 5 - aside from a typo or two (I believe Mr. Rivera spells his first name G-E-raldo) I don't see how it could have been done any better.

Dawn Xiana Moon: Deeply personal and moving - I could totally identify with where Dawn was coming from in this post. She expresses herself very well - the writing is fluid and effortless to read. You just can't compare this post with the other two deep and thoughtful entries, because it's meant to touch a different part of the reader. Dawn lets us in to her heart and spirit instead of her mind, and I'm giving it a 5 because it was done so well.

Challenge Post

In the Outer: OK. Another new group of contestants, another reminder: Please, oh please, for the sake of the judges who get realllllly tired of it, try to find a more creative way to introduce your post than "here's the question, here's the response". You can even do a separate post right before the challenge response warning your regular readers that the nonsense that follows is in response to the King of the Blogs tournament challenge question. Or link to the KotB tournament round post that includes the question somewhere early in your response. Or just confuse random passers-by with the response out of nowhere. To the entry... The Bloke presents us with a written draft of his first speech to the masses, complete with strikeouts and rewritten bits. A catchy little approach, and one that amuses me. Gratuitous sucking up to the judges, hosts and commissioner - another plus. Self-linkage to appease Harvey, who likes to see that sort of ego in a pretender to the throne. The one thing that nagged me throughout reading this speech, however - The Bloke seems to think that this is a democratic monarchy - like the voting we allow the masses to participate in is more important than the judges. Now see, support of the masses can put you over the top if the judges have no clear favorite in this tournament - if it's close, it can make the difference - but you must always be careful to appease the judges first and foremost, because of your possible 51 points, 45 of them will be coming from myself, Harv and Pietro. A decent first speech... The Bloke gets a 3.

Radical Centrist: An improvement on the "here's the question, here's the response" intro - and creativity in format to boot. R.C. gives us a script, complete with asides and crowd reactions. Too many high points to highlight here - I love the blog-centric "inside jokes" tossed about here and there... my only complaint is his disdain for cat-bloggers. Heh. R.C.'s challenge response earns a 5.

Dawn Xiana Moon: Despite the lack of creativity in the intro, and even the format of the speech itself, Dawn has given us a taste of her reign of terror as Queen and I like what I see. Her attitude is properly imperial (or is that imperious)... Her crusade to rid the blogosphere of grammatical errors makes the Grammar Cop and the English Teacher lurking within me stand up and cheer... and the thought of beheading webmasters who continue to use multiple animated GIFs and horrific color combinations and poor layout and... *ahem* anyway, I like what this Queen has to offer. Normally I'd take points off for a non-creative format, but the content of this speech is the deciding factor. I'm giving it a 5, because I'm a judge and I get to make my own exceptions to my own rules, so there.

The Queen's Rulings

In the Outer: 11

Radical Centrist: 13

Dawn Xiana Moon: 14

KING OF THE BLOGS: JUDGMENT DAY 6

Three new slabs of meat, ready for the grinder.

Burgers, anyone?

THE CHALLENGE QUESTION:

You have just been chosen as the King of the Blogs. Write a speech beginning you reign of terror.

The Bloke of In The Outer:
GOOD POINTS: Arrogant, sucks up a lot.
BAD POINTS: Kind of standard, boiler-plate tyrant bloviation. Could've been more imaginative, like by making me Minister of Public Decency or something. Also, I'm not a big fan of the crossed-out-text approach to humor. You're the dictator. You can use the first draft if you want. Who's going to challenge you?
SCORE: 3

TRC of The Radical Centrist:
GOOD POINTS: I was concerned by some of the early, thoughtful pandering, but in the end, absolute power's absolute corruption came shining through. This line describing policital moderates just slayed me, as did the leftist reaction:

"Beware of the stealth enemy. They look like liberals, but shop at WalMart! Beware!"
The bongo drums on the left rise to a frenzy

BAD POINTS: Didn't call for the immediate wholesale slaughter of catbloggers.
SCORE: 5

Dawn of Randomness:
GOOD POINTS: Threatens to purge the blogosphere based on aesthetics instead of politics. Also manages to sidestep Murphy's Law by NOT having a grammar error in a post criticizing grammar errors. This girl is hardcore, and if I'm ever whacked by a disgruntled KOTB contestant, Dawn would make a good replacement judge.
BAD POINTS: The opening & closing need work. I was a little put off by the 2 cheap misdirection lines at the beginning, but the rest of the piece was good after it warmed up, so I shrugged it off. The Star Wars quote at the end, however, just feels tacked on by someone desperately searching for a way to finish. Helpful hint (which Dawn used to good effect in her submitted post) - make a reference to your opening. Simply signing off with another Princess Bride quote would've been better. For example:

[flips page]

"Man and wife".

SCORE: 4

SUBMITTED ENTRY:

In The Outer: Showing Mercy to the Poor
GOOD POINTS: Gives a novel interpretation of the word "poor" as used in a Biblical context:

"those who are so impoverished and incapacitated because they do not have the means either materially, emotionally, or even morally(!), such that they are rendered incapable, or perhaps even unwilling to, give back to you."

I'd never thought of it that way before, and I enjoyed this example of thinking outside the box.
BAD POINTS: Asserts that Western civilization may qualify as "poor" without discussing the specifics of why, giving only vague references to other posts. More detail would've been helpful to make this essay self-contained. Perhaps the information is available in the earlier-linked posts, but then maybe The Bloke should've submitted one of those, instead. A GOOD submitted post has all the information the reader needs. Supportive linkage should be gravy, not necessity.
SCORE: 3

The Radical Centrist: The News Becomes Surreal...
GOOD POINTS: Excellent form on this one - TRC introduces the general topic, gives an interesting quote, then gives his point of view, followed by a conclusion.
BAD POINTS: Did this THREE TIMES in one post. There was a nice segue between the part on the loony Democrats and the part on the silent Democrats, so I'll give that one a pass. However, when the topic moved to Sistani, then the discussion ceases to be about domestic politics, and - with the essay getting rather longish at this point - it would've been better to save that part for a separate post.
SCORE: 4

Randomness: Treading Water
GOOD POINTS: Powerful, gripping, emotional essay on Dawn's slow loss of control over her life and the joy of regaining it. Beautifully done. LOVED the way the ending recalled the beginning and provided perfect closure.
BAD POINTS: No supportive linkage on the Song of Songs quote. Not a big enough deal to ding for, considering how good the rest of the piece was.
SCORE: 5

WHOLE BLOG REVIEW - TECHNICAL MERIT AND PERSONALITY:

Here are some technical things I like to see on a blog:

King of the Blogs javascript thingy in the sidebar
Comments enabled
Permalinks working
E-mail contact info available
Blogger's name/pseudonym prominently displayed
Site search feature enabled
Link to an "About Me" post on the sidebar
Blogger's gender is easily discernable
Blogroll
Readable font style & size
Readable color scheme (for example, NOT bright red type on bright green
background)
Divisions between posts clearly marked
Paragraphing in entries (NOT just writing one fat block of text)

Aside from the tech stuff, I also like to see a blogger's personality shining through, to remind us of the person behind the words.

With that in mind...

In The Outer
GOOD POINTS: All the technicals in place. Upgraded to Haloscan comments while leaving old Blogger comments in place for posterity. I would LOVE for Bloke to write a detailed post on this process and send me a link so that I can show all my Blogspotted friends that this CAN be done.
BAD POINTS: Blue is my favorite color, so I like this color scheme, yet... could there be such a thing as "too much" blue? Maybe another color for some of the sidebar stuff? A background pattern to break up the monotony? I don't know. It's functional, yet... a little bland, somehow.
SCORE: 4

The Radical Centrist
GOOD POINTS: Something about using thin colored lines to break a blog into sections just makes me happy. Nice, subtle use of color without going overboard. Content-wise - lots of well-written entries.
BAD POINTS: No search, no "About Me", no author's name, no gender identification... TRC is an excellent writer, but not a good BLOGGER. After folks read all this great stuff, they want to know more about the author. Indulge them, please. At the VERY least, give them a name by which to refer to you. Meanwhile, the code for enabling a Google search on your site can be found here.
SCORE: 3

Randomness:
GOOD POINTS: Well, at least there's no gender confusion. On a personal note, Dawn has the prettiest lips in the world to which I am not married.
BAD POINTS: Wait... this is a blog?... it looks more like just a website with comments enabled. Although it's warm, welcoming & friendly, it's a navigational nightmare. There's a complete lack of sidebars, which is like having a room with no pictures on the walls. Very antiseptic. Very much isolated from the blogging community. Yes, I know there's a "links" page, but it's really not the same thing. I'm sorry, this is really just TOO unbloglike. And, again, here's the Google search code.
SCORE: 2

FINAL TALLY:

In The Outer: 10

The Radical Centrist: 12

Randomness: 11

Excuse my brevity, folks, in this week's ruling. I've been a bit short of time lately; don't confuse it with my traditional ignorant ramble.

The Radical Centrist

Post:
Wow. I'm impressed at the depth and focus of this post. While this topic has been one that's been covered, overcovered, and doubly refried, Bird takes a refreshing look at what many would call a victory for freedom, but what the Democrats took as a disappointment. I'm impressed by the scope of reading and the abundance of links to relevant material from both sides. But what really wrapped things up really well with this essay was the credit Bird gave, and justly thus, to the Iraqi people for securing their own freedom. Well-written... long, but an enjoyable read.

5 points.

Site:

First impression - clean, simple two-column blog with nice logo. I know out other judges may want more information in the About Me column, but if I did, I'd have to live up to my own standard, so I won't. The KOTB banner is right where it's supposed to be. There's nothing fancy, nothing garish about this blog... it just focuses the reader on what's important - the most excellent and well-written posts. I enjoyed this read, and lights and pretty colors don't matter when the writing is top-notch. Only one drawback - for many people, extended entries are a pain to read. The least you can do is allow the reader to not have to switch to a permalink to read them (see WizbangTech for examples on how to do this). 4 points.

Challenge:

CHOICE QUOTE:

A small disturbance is heard from the back of the crowd.

The New King: "Fool, what is that commotion?"

King of Fools:" It's the Booze-Bloggers, sire, they're drink-blogging the speech. Everytime you say "blogosphere" they down another drink"

The New King: "Is that so? Well, this will quiet them!"

(to the crowd) "Blogosphere! and Blogosphere, blogosphereblogosphereblogosphereblogosphere!"

Excellent post, though is implying by your Frenchness and nuance that he's a ruler in the mold of John Kerry? Lots of jabs at cat and knitting blogs, a bonus in my book. Kudos for additional mentions of Dan Rather, shellfish, and toilet - er, toiling.

5 points.

Dawn xiana Moon

Post:

I'm going to give thumbs up to Dawn for a truly original, heartfelt, personal post. I understand that not everyone wants to read blogs that are written like journals, and detail the mundane, every day life of ordinary people; but in sharing with us her experience of having just gone through a broken relationship, only to find a much more solid, complete, loving relationship with God and finding direction, she adds a bit of a subtle challenge to find direction in our own lives. She adeptly uses her talent for writing to convey the same type of emotion that her music is meant to evoke.

4.5 points.

Site:

First off, if you want to locate where Dawn's actual blog is, beware... it's cryptic! (Hint: Click on Randomness to see her blog) She seems to be a rather talented young lady, and this is a blog of another color. I like the uniqueness, simplicity and structure of her site.. but to tell you the truth, it's got more of the feel of a commercial site than a blog. If you want to peruse the archives, you have to click a link. If you want to see the blogroll, you're going to have to click another link. There are comments, but no trackbacks.

I have no complaints about her writing. It reflects her ability as an artist and musician. Her picture certainly adds to the attractiveness of the site as well. But this feels and reads more of a biography, like I said, on a commercial site, than the traditional blog format.

3.5 points.

Challenge:

CHOICE QUOTE:

As king, my first, most important, priority shall be to rid the internet of native English speakers who, for some reason unbeknownst to their former teachers, never mastered the fundamentals of the English language, as evidenced by their atrocious writing. Nobility and peasantry alike, this cannot be tolerated. When one cannot tell the difference between “whether” and “weather,” “waist” and “waste,” “herd and heard,” the complete and utter downfall of the kingdom is at hand. Typos are understandable, if not entirely excusable, but the inability to use correct syntax is despicable. All such bloggers shall be beheaded. The mainstream press is also to be executed when committing such violent injustice to the English language (yes, I did read an article by Fox News confusing “precedent” with “president"). Off with their heads!

She's no king, she's a Queen! Of hearts! One wonders where she gets her predilection for lopping off heads, but I wouldn't dare question her.

4 points.

In the Outer

Post:

Good post, a bit difficult for the layman. The bloke refers to previous posts when discussing the topic of culture superiority thinking; the post could have been made much easier to read by including a snippet or two of the text of one or both of those linked posts. Indeed, the topic of Christian love and moral superiority is an interesting one, and the author put his heart and mind into the post, but it came off as wordy and detached.

3 points.

Site:

So who's 'The Bloke'? That's the first question that popped into my mind when I got my first glance of his blog. Here we're looking at a densely organized three-column blog with a moody dark blue hue. I greatly appreciate the post titles being a nice shade of orange; it's nice to be able to pick out individual posts... if only the text of the posts were a bit
easier to read with the low color contrast. I noticed that he had a problem with the KOTB banner javascript; that's ok, I had problems like these as well. I also noticed as I scrolled down that Bloke has a bit too much sidebar, which sort of limits his room for the actual posts. In fact, it's some of the most content in a sidebar I've ever seen. Bloke's pretty
much taken every meme known to the blogosphere and ran with it. I liked reading his posts, but I didn't much like having to scroll more to read less. Overall, a blog with great promise and some good Christian insight, but not ready to be king.

3 points.

Challenge:

CHOICE QUOTE:

Every kingdom desires to make an impact and leave a legacy, and so as Ruler of Blogosphere, I would work with you to make this a better world, starting with a massive campaign to build Parents' Rest Rooms in Every Mall in the Free World.

Yes! Right on!

4 points.

In the Outer 10

Dawn xiana Moon 12

The Radical Centrist 14

In the Outer 31
Dawn xiana Moon 37
The Radical Centrist 39

In the Outer 22
Randomness 18
Radical Centrist 4

In the Outer: 1

In the Outer 6
Dawn xiana Moon 2
The Radical Centrist 1

In the Outer 37
Dawn xiana Moon 39
The Radical Centrist 40