Koufax award nominations now open (but only until January 21!)

It almost got by us, but we noticed it just in time. Nominations for the 2006 Koufax Awards are now open over at Wampum. For those on the Port (left) side of the blogosphere, the Koufax Awards are the most important credit we can obtain. We have been nominated all of our blog years and were a Finalist last year (SciBling PZ at Pharyngula won the Best Expert Blog and our friend Jordan Barab at Confined Space won the Best Single Issue Blog, both richly deserved), but we did well and we are always pleased to be in such good company. We have a real chance this year, because there will be no repeaters. So feel free to nominate us again this year for whatever category you think appropriate (see below the fold). No limit on the number of blogs you can nominate but just do it once per blog. So what's it all about? From the original announcement (4 years ago):

The Koufax Awards are named for Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest left handed pitchers of all time. They are intended to honor the best blogs and bloggers of the left. At the core, the Koufax Awards are meant to be an opportunity to say nice things about your favorite bloggers and to provide a bit of recognition for the folks who provide us with daily information, insight, and entertainment. The awards are supposed to be fun for us and fun for you.

[snip]

Our goal has always been to help build and promote a sense of community among Lefty bloggers and their readers.(Wampum)

You nominate a blog for a category by leaving a comment at this post on Wampum. You must include the blog's URL, which for your convenience (ahem!) is: http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/ If you see we have already been nominated for a category you don't have to do it again. You can find which blogs have been nominated in which categories here. We haven't been nominated yet, because (we hope) few people who read us knew about it. We could make it easy by nominating ourselves, but we are too repressed and self-conscioius for that.

Here are the categories (and their descriptions) we imagine we might be eligible for (that's up to you):

Best Blog
This category seeks to recognize the best overall work across the entire year. Blogs run by professional journalists and blogs sponsored by media organizations compete in their own division. Blog communities also compete in a separate category. With that understanding, which lefty blog do you consider indispensable? Who was best this year?

Best Writing
This category seeks to recognize the best writing on a lefty blogger. Who had the best writing in 2006?

Best Post
This category is intended to identify the one post of the year that stands above all others for originality, insight, and writing. This is one category in which it is most appropriate to nominate your own work. After all, you know your posts better than anyone else.

When making a nomination in this category, you must now send along a link to the post.

*Best Series
This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. As with Best Post, please include links to the entire series, or at a minimum, 3-4 sample posts. This is another category where we want you to send us your best stuff.

*Best Single Issue Blog
This category is for blogs that focus exclusively or almost exclusively on a single specific area such as politics, economics, law, science, etc. It differs from Best Expert in that it is about blog content, not the blogger's qualifications.

Most Humorous Post
What post made you laugh out loud this year? If you have read or written anything particularly humorous this year, please send us the link.

*Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
This category was added in 2003. It seeks to honor bloggers who are consistently good but for whatever reason do not receive the recognition they deserve. However, with the explosion of talent in the Lefty blogosphere, it seems more fitting as a category for those small blogs which plod away in wilderness, yet to be discovered, versus medium-sized blogs, which, due to writing style or focus, are widely known but still not trafficked as heavily as the big dogs. So who do you think is this year's undiscovered gem?

*Best Consonant Level Blog
This is a new category, overwhelmingly supported in the new category poll, and one whose name I greedily pilfered from Attaturk (sitting in for Atrios last week.) It seeks to recognize those moderate-sized blogs which have not yet, or perhaps are happy not to, reach the ranks of the "A-listers". Everyone has their own favorite due to content, wit or ambience, or even the esprit des corps of the comments section. So who is your "go to" moderate-sized blog?

*Best Expert Blog
This is another category added in 2003 at the request of the readers. It seeks to honor those who bring particular expertise, by way of professional experience or academic achievement, to a particular topic. Who is this year's best expert?

Best Commenter
This category is for those who post comments on other people's blogs. Who was the best commenter of 2006? this one is for you, not for us. Give the name of the commenter (or his/her alias) and the blog they comment on.

We marked with an asterisk those categories we have been nominated in other years and which we think aren't too big a stretch this year. We know our readership is specialized and not huge (although big for a specialist blog), so we aren't reserving a spot on our sidebar for the award. More importantly, it is a chance for you to share with other people know what blogs you think are good to read and also an opportunity to get to know some you were unfamiliar with.

As our hosts at Wampum say, it's a chance to build community. They have done this every year on their own nickel (and it's an enormous amount of work), so if you are inclined and want to support this strange beast called the blogosphere, hit their tip jar with a couple of shekels.