A little after midnight I checked the Resurrection Blogfest poll and saw a tied score for the 1st prize offering. I Tweeted that news and went to bed, thinking I'd use some site like random.org to break the tie. I didn't feel good about this; life is already so random, I'd have preferred that the 1st prize winner be voted for and not be selected by chance.
As it happens, the poll didn't close.
This morning, I saw that two more votes got in after I went to bed, leaving a clear 1st prize winner.
I don't know what happened with the poll. I'm confident that I set the closing time for 11:59pm on Monday, November 12. No other votes should've gone through after that, but they did.
So I was on the horns of an ethical dilemma: the decisive votes were cast after the stop time I'd published in all of the blogfest announcements. However, if they hadn't been, I'd have had to do the equivalent of flipping a coin to determine a first prize winner.
I'm not happy about the poll not closing on time, and I'm sorry for it. But I'm not going to discount two votes in favor of someone's work. So I will let the results stand. For next year's blogfest, I'll seek a new polling tool and will do some trial runs in advance to make sure it works as intended.
And now, without further ado...
The winners of my first annual
Resurrection Blogfest
are...
1st Prize ($20 Amazon Gift Card): Beyond, original fiction by Tamara at One Magic Bean Buyer
2nd Prize ($15 Amazon Gift Card): Boundless, sci-fi poetry by L.G. Keltner at Writing Off the Edge
3rd Prize ($10 Amazon Gift Card): The Metropolis of Tomorrow, music video by Kristina Perez
Congratulations!!!
Congratulations!!!
If you haven't already done so, please e-mail me so I can get them gift cards on their way to youse guys! Feel free to stick the above badge on your blogs, too.
Thanks to all finalists, and indeed, all participants, for making my first ever blogfest a grand success! I hope you enjoyed reading folks' resurrected posts and making new pals all up in the blogosphere as much as I did.
Over the next week or so I anticipate posting links to my Honorable Mentions (the folks I'd have nominated as finalists except for my danged "only 7 finalists" rule). Dear Readers, if you've not yet checked them out, I reckon you oughta!
Thanks again to all; it's been such a pleasure for me. Hope it was for y'all, too.
<3
Life is random indeed sometimes, and weird things happen. And congrats to Tamara for the first prize win, because her story was awesome!
ReplyDeleteI think I emailed you a couple days ago, but I'll probably go ahead and send you a quick email just to be sure you get it. I'm paranoid like that.
Thanks for hosting this blogfest!
My pleasure, LG. You did send me an e-mail; keep an eye on your Inbox! :-)
DeleteCongratulations to Tamara, LG, and Kristina! And thanks Mina for hosting the blogfest. C'etait génial! (:
ReplyDeleteC'est gentil à vous de le dire! (Thank God for Google Translate!) ;-)
Delete:D
DeleteCongrats to all the winners! What a terrific festival this was and I'm so happy to have participated. You should do this every year, Mina. Your rock!
ReplyDeleteMelissa, thank you. For now, I do anticipate continuing with this blogfest, though I hope to avoid that polling weirdness! :-) I'm thinking I'd have folks resurrect a blog from the second year of blogging, for next year, but after that I'm not sure I'd continue in that exact vein - I worry I'd be ruling folks who may not have more than two years of blogging under their belts, you know? What do you think?
DeleteCongratulations to the winners!!!!! :D Could it be that the time was set for a different time zone? So you thought it was closing at midnight EST but it was really Central or Pacific? Thanks for hosting the blogfest and I'm pleased that I was able to take part!
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point, JoJo - I did try to be very careful about how I set up the poll, but it's totally possible I spazzed out and set the wrong time zone...or maybe I don't have my Blogger account's time zone set? I'll go check right now! Thanks for the suggestion, Lady!
DeleteI'm back to pester you again. Just wanted to let you know that I've tagged you for something. Feel free to stop by if you're so inclined!
ReplyDeletehttp://lgkeltner.blogspot.com/2012/11/good-news-and-u-got-look.html
Oh, wow! Thanks! You've just reminded me, though, that I have some other taggy things to attend to...oh, where's the time????? :-)
DeleteWOW!!! Thank you, Mina!!!! I can't get online at my job (they frown on it for some reason) so I'm just now seeing this. I'm very, extremely honored and so glad everyone liked my story!! I think this story must be my lucky charm--I've had way better luck with it than I have with my real books. haha.
ReplyDeleteI'll drop you an email. THANKS again. And congrats to L.G. (I loved that poem) and Kristina Perez!
I'm so happy to see you so happy! :-) Congrats again; it's really a fabulous story.
DeleteLOL -- random, schmandom! If it had stayed a tie, I wouldn't have agonized over any Solomonesque baby-cleaving decision or left it up to the fates. I'd have just called it even, taken it as a cosmic sign that both are deserved winners, and given them each $17.50 to split the difference. ;^)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the winners!!!
And a hearty thanks to Mina for a fun and entertaining blogging festivities!
LOL, Chris! I wish I could be cool like that but I'm an agonizer from waaaaaay back! ;-)
DeleteCongrats to the winners! It was a fun blogfest!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it!
DeleteHow fantastic. And my bet is hedged on the time zone thing. It could have closed in EST but not in PST. Yip. That's what I'm going with.
ReplyDeleteYep, it's as good a guess as any!
DeleteYou see? It was fate! Congrats to the winners, I enjoyed every post!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it *was* fate! :)
DeleteCongratulations to the winners!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mina for being such a gracious hostess
Aw, shucks, ma'am... ;)
DeleteHuzzah to the winners - I am glad to say I voted for one of these and for the marvellous hostess, whose technical knowhow surpasses mine (not a difficult thing) - so much easier than the A-Z challenge not to mention the possibility of gift cards.
ReplyDeleteYou're kind to say so, sir. :D
ReplyDeleteFantastic! Congrats! :)
ReplyDeleteI'll admit to not voting because I just couldn't decide!!!
Thanks so much everyone! I've been on a plane for most of the last couple of days so I missed the announcement!
ReplyDeleteAwesomeness to the winners! L.G. and Tamara are two of my reg bloggers I love to follow and now I have another one - Kristina! Such a cool blogfest... Hope we all survive your bday this year. I will be thinking about you as I'm holed up in my house with supplies and plenty of weapons (including a katana) waiting for the apocalypse to happen - or the world to explode. lmao!
ReplyDeleteThanks, all!
ReplyDelete@Dani: I gotta dig a chick who knows her way around a katana! :-)