🥇 Week 1 Results of the January 2020 Best Post Contest

January 5, 2020 3:13 AM

Thank you most excellent posters and voters for a lovely start to the January Best Post Contest! The first week was a tad short on days but nevertheless full of fantastic posts. Step inside to view Week 1 winners, and remember to keep voting with the Fantastic Flag all month.

Week 1's big winner is:

🎆Let it bounce exactly twice for perfect texture 🍿 by Etrigan 🎆

Second place for Week 1 is It's Gonna Be a Year by oneswellfoop

and a bonus post from just before the beginning of the month that we'll include since it was a short week for posting: Clementine Paddleford's high-flying, deep-sea culinary adventures by filthy light thief

The best post by a first or second time poster was:

✨"Nevertheless, let’s judge them on that irrelevant criterion." ✂️by pol ✨

Other top vote-getters include:

Cultural appropriation as an antenna by Conspire

Back to the Beginning by damayanti

Three shifts at the Scrabble factory by Mrs Potato

G🙂D🙂N CHRISTMAS ANGELS by hippybear

“Imagine being arrested for selling poetry!” by Kattullus

The 1788 Doctors’ Riot and Colonial White Nationalism by katra

Congratulations, awesome posters; thank you all!
........................

As a reminder, here are the members sponsoring Individual Prizes for the month, where "best" is up to the prize-offerer's discretion (if you'd like to be added, just comment below with your category, prize, if applicable, and how posters should tag their post, and I will add you to the list):

Taz is offering an e-book (to be decided) for the best post on little / less known mythology or any aspects of mythology from any era or culture. Please tag your post with "secretmythology."

Frimble is offering an award for the best post in the category of "High Weirdness"; please tag your posts with "highweirdness2020."

Etrigan is offering any in-print wallet game from Button Shy Games (and a recommendation of which one to get, if you would like) for the best post about gaming. Please tag your post with "gamingbpj" (not required to win).

Fizz offers fake points for the best post about Victorian Literature, and wins best tag contest, with associated tag 'viclitforfizz'.

Homo neanderthalensis is offering a custom artistic garden-y sign as a reward for the best post about cabbage family crops. Please tag with “Brassica.”

Rangefinder 1.4 is offering prizes for posts about not-so-famous women doing awesome things, with bonus consideration for diversity and underrepresented people. Please use the tags "awesomewomen" and "representation."

Daisyace will reward the best post about extreme connoisseurship -- a person or a site that goes overboard analyzing what's the best X, for any given X. Prize will be a regifted Chrismukkah present. Please tag with "fivestars."

Mchelly will reward the best post about anything Jewish. Winner will get a mezuzah case, with the winner based on fantastic flags. Please use the tag "MetaGefilter."

Box will reward the best post about libraries (with a broad definition of that term) with a prize TBD. Please tag with "libraries."

Box will also reward the best post made *by* a librarian or library worker with a prize TBD. Please tag with "librarianpost."

Cozybee would like to see art (like drawing, painting, sculpting) posts ... art guides, highlighting of good online art, or good in depth art history discussion, etc. The prize will be a photo of a sketch based on a prompt from you, probably in colored pencil. Please tag your post with "artsy."

spamandkimchi will award a sticker and a magnet of a "kimchi juice" for the best post on fermentation (in which the fermentation process results in something ingestable). Please tag with "fermentation."

spamandkimchi is also offering a copy of Sana Goldberg's "How to Be a Patient" for the best post about health / medicine / human biology / health care / medical trials / home health care. Please tag with "healthcare."

Jessamyn is offering maple sugar candy to the best post about any rural or small-town thing, anywhere in the world. Please tag with "rural."

posted by taz (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 3:13 AM (13 comments total)

If we had a worst post contest, I would have won.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:46 AM on January 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

I do not see my prize listed, perhaps an oversight? Anyways, Mefites, looking forward to the Tony Danza full frontal nudity links!
posted by Meatbomb at 6:10 AM on January 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

Literaryhero, you get the ad hoc prize for "Link With The Best Title" for "Codpiece thrusts its way back into fashion."
posted by taz (staff) at 6:48 AM on January 5, 2020 [8 favorites]

Yay! It was a good short week for posts; VERY glad to see emoji scissors at the top of [one of] the heap[s].

Is there a formal process for nominating a post for a contest tag? For example, this excellent post seems a good candidate for "awesomewomen"/"representation" but may not have been tagged as much if the poster doesn't frequent MeTa. Or is it better to assume a poster does not want to be considered for the contest?
posted by youarenothere at 8:59 AM on January 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

"Codpiece thrusts its way back into fashion."
Can I get s fav for working in
'CODPIECE FULL OF STRAW' from the Eliot thread?
Wonderful posts, like mefi got an injection of posting brilliance. Poetry threads, keep em coming folks.
posted by clavdivs at 10:35 AM on January 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

Good question, youarenothere; I will ask the poster. (Probably not until my shift comes around since it's getting a bit late here and supper is waiting)
posted by taz (staff) at 11:04 AM on January 5, 2020

Box did the library prize so mine will be a rural prize. Will send some maple sugar candy (made by the spouse of a librarian) to the best post about any rural or small-town thing, anywhere in the world. Please use the tag 'rural' to enter.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:53 AM on January 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

I feel like I should be giving an acceptance speech, even though I only got second place, bacause I've never been recognized for anything here before that wasn't in the nature of "in big trouble". I'd also like to acknowlege MeFi's Own Miss Cellania, who has been been blogging for five times as long as she's been a MeFite, for recognizing my post in a post on the more commercial Neatorama.com. I feel like you all like me, you really like me!
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:34 PM on January 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

youarenothere, I talked to loriginedumonde, and they are happy to be nominated, so I added those tags to the post; thank you!
posted by taz (staff) at 7:16 AM on January 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thanks! Moving forward, should we flag with note if we think a post could use a contest tag? I also thought & commented that the cat whiskers post might be appropriate for a couple of the categories.

Am I suddenly oddly invested in these nominations? Never paid much attention before but now I want as many folks as possible to get their awesome posts acknowledged. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by youarenothere at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2020 [3 favorites]

It would be better to let me know, youarenothere, because if you flag that way, you cannot also flag as "fantastic." You can mefi mail me, contact mail (link at bottom left of every page), or mention here or future Best Of threads this month, and I will see it. Or you can ask the OP directly, of course, if you feel like doing that.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:06 AM on January 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Makes perfect sense; thanks for facilitating!
posted by youarenothere at 4:45 PM on January 6, 2020

> may not have been tagged as much if the poster doesn't frequent MeTa. Or is it better to assume a poster does not want to be considered for the contest?

I can only speak for myself on how I put together the stable of posts to consider, but basically I'll look at any post, even if if it doesn't have the tags I asked for. However, tags are important and guarantee that I will see the post.

I think this is the fifth or sixth contest where I've been a sponsor, and there have always been posts that qualify but don't have the tags I requested. I've also definitely chosen winners that didn't have the tags, and have heard from winners who didn't even realize there was a contest going on.

If anybody wants to know a little more about my process:
- Every few days (at least once a week), I go through the week's MeFi posts and see if any could qualify for the category I'm sponsoring.
- I check my category tags first, then I'll scroll through the site and check more posts as I have time. I do notice that sometimes older posts show up later in the category tag, because of a tag that's added later (either by poster, or mutual contact, or mod).
- I type in some info about each post into a spreadsheet, so I can keep track of which ones I have read or still need to read. I try to give every qualifying post a fair shake, so for instance if it's a fairly long video or article or interview etc, I'll save it for when I have time.

And, this is a little off on a tangent but it's totally fine to decline prizes. I'm offering items sent by mail, so there is zero obligation to send me a mailing address if the winner would prefer not to share that info. Most of the prizes I send out are postcards, and for the past few years I've also specifically asked winners if it's okay to reference MetaFilter / their post / their username on the postcard. Not everyone who's had a winning post has claimed their prize, at least in my experience, and again that's totally fine.

All that said, thanks to youarenothere for your interest in making sure relevant posts have relevant tags, and to the mods for adding relevant tags! I appreciate it.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 10:36 PM on January 7, 2020 [2 favorites]