In fulfillment of my duties as a member of the Watcher’s Council, every week I read and consider a dozen or so non-Council posts, some submitted by the other Council members, some submitted by their authors. Over the years I’ve developed a more or less standardized if not formalized method of evaluating these posts on the the basis of source, style, and content.
I try to prefer actual blog posts over newspaper columns or magazine articles. It would take a newspaper column or magazine article of surpassing excellence both in content and style to get my vote.
I don’t need to agree with a post to vote for it. I’ve frequently voted for genuinely novel, creative, important, interesting, or just plain well-written posts with which I haven’t particularly agreed. I won’t vote for a post with which I disagree unless it’s one of the above.
