Why My Blog is Now Award-Free

I've thought about writing this post a number of times, but I've hesitated for fear of hurting someone's feelings. I cherish every award that I have ever received and each of the people who have given me an award. It is wonderful to feel part of the group and to be acknowledged. After much thought, however, I've decided to make this an Award-Free Blog.

My reasons are several. First, what about the people who don't receive the awards? I've always felt uncomfortable with competition and also with cliques. That's why I've tried to pass my awards on to all of my readers. I don't like feeling left out, and I don't like leaving others out either.

Then, some of the awards have requirements, like posting the award on your blog. That's like giving free advertising space! Along those same lines, most awards require that you pass the award on to a certain number of people, with links to their blogs, and an email notifying them of the award. I hate to say this, but the rules sometimes start to sound like a chain letter. Whenever I receive email chain letters, by the way, I delete them immediately.

Another thing I'm seeing more of with blog awards is that the winner must answer several questions. When I had a Facebook account, I once saw a little "game" created by a social engineer (social engineering is where someone gathers bits and pieces of information about someone else, and eventually puts the information all together in order to commit fraud). Facebook friends were asking their friends to play this game. In the course of playing the game, a person would end up sharing their mother's maiden name, their first pet's name, and their street number.

Of course I know that the people who have given me awards aren't social engineers, but I'm just saying that I try to be careful about the information I give out on my blog and elsewhere. So I am wary of awards that require me to answer questions.

There are better ways than giving awards, in my opinion, to show you like a blog. You can leave nice comments on that blog; write a post about a blog with a link to the blog; follow a blog (if you use the Google Friend Connect app on your blog, I can follow you back too!); subscribe to a blog's feed; and add a favorite blog to your blogroll. All of these are great ways to show you like someone's blog.

So Plushpussycat blog is now an Award-Free Blog. Thank you again to everyone who has ever given me an award. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and cherish your friendship. Keep having fun! xoxo Jennifer