My initial reflex was to ignore the Aniblog Tourney, since I'm not in it anyway, and it seemed like a cynical hit-mongering scheme at first. But after making a fool out of myself in Kuro's comments, I reconsidered the facts, and the facts are: 1. The tournament site is not promoting either RP the person or RP the site, 2. The site is not running ads (which it probably should, actually). In my defence, I figured it out before someone else prodded me into doing so.

N.B. I would not have anything against the tournament actually being a promotional tool or lining RP's pockets with ad revenue. All I am saying, I made a factually incorrect comment, not implying any judgement. Of course I would not need to promote it now if it were a cynical ploy, because I would not be guilty of misrepresentation.

Meanwhile, Kuro amended his post by dropping the link and referring to "RP’s arrogance" and "self-aggrandizing scheme" over the following comment:

I’m not sure what purpose an email to the blog authors would have served. Permission? Acknowledgment? But for what? Unlike animeblips, which I know you’re not a fan of, the tourney isn’t lifting content. And there’s no effort required on the authors part.

There’s nothing cynical about this. It was an idea sparked by talk about previous anime blog awards, and a similar tourney I noticed among sports blogs (in honor of the NCAA basketball tourney).

Honestly, we felt it’d be a good chance for a.) to let the readers in on some of the fun b.) shine some light on newer, lesser known blogs.

Maybe I’m just underestimating how much people value their e-peen, but I really doubt anyone’s going to get off on this. Whichever blog “wins” probably already has all the e-peen he needs.

Also, it’s nothing like the OEG. The OEG was a personal tirade against the usage of a certain word. It was a “competition” in only the most bastardized sense.

Lastly, if you’ve got suggestions post them on the blog. I don’t think at any point an email will go out to the blog writers in advance, but in the future we could probably allow some extra time and explicit direction to give people a chance to opt-out of the tourney.

I think RP addressed the intent of the tournament better in this comment than in long position statements on the actual site. I cannot see why Kuro is throwing link-removing tantrums. To suggest, as he did, that "the creators [of tournament] could have given the blogs in the tournament a heads-up email too; y’know, just for being polite and such" is plainly ridiculous. Am I supposed to e-mail to everyone I link now, too? I don't think so. So, by his actions, au contrarie to the desired result, Kuro only made me more likely to weigh in with promotion of the tournament.

P.S. I probably need to say something about Nova being silly as well, but whatever. Same points, same refutation. But a nice toehoe picture (I happen to know that ice is Cirno's power)!

UPDATE: Josh created a click-through bracket on a free sports website. I'm a little surprised that it only supports power-of-2 sets, but it's readable.