The Cleveland Park Listy Awards are a time-honored tradition going back 13 years* -- which is a virtual eon in Internet Time.
In the past, we've used the weekly Still Life with Robin column over the last four Saturdays in December, reserving the first Saturday to announce this annual event, and the next two Saturdays to present the nominees -- selecting five messages in each of the seven categories -- and on the last Saturday in December, we announce the winners.
This year -- after collecting nominations from you, the Listserv community -- we're adding two more Saturdays (the last two in November) to accommodate all the great posts in a particularly fertile year of Listserv posts.
Here's how it will unfold:
I. November 22 (Today's Column): Presenting The Categories and The Nominating Rules
II. November 29: Introducing the Nominees for Best Animal Story and Best Query
III. December 6: Nominees for Best Response to a Query/Best Advice and Best Long Discussion Thread
IV. December 13: Best Giveaway and Poster of the Year
V. December 20: Photo of the Year and Post of the Year
VI. December 27: Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Cleveland Park Listies!
To nominate a post, just email me at clevelandparklistservmoderator @ gmail dot com with the text of the post you want to nominate, and/or the message number, subject line, and date.
If you have an idea about a post you'd like to see recognized but you don't have any of the identifying information requested above, but you can think of a few keywords to look it up, you can do a search of the Listserv archives to find it. Instructions to do an archives search are here: http://www.cleveland-park.com/searching-the-archives.html
The following categories -- Best Animal Story; Best Query; Best Giveaway; Photo of the Year; and Post of the Year -- are all self-explanatory.
Now for some notes on the categories that are NOT self-explanatory:
- Best Response to a Query/Best Advice. You can choose a message posted in response to a request for recommendations or advice, but please note: a prior query is not a requirement. This category also includes messages offering a creative solution to a problem or an account of an experience with useful information for readers, posted at any time during 2025.
- Best Long Discussion Thread is defined as any series of messages on the same topic, consisting of at least six messages from at least four unique posters. You can nominate the poster who kicked off the discussion, or nominate the message that you consider the outstanding one of all the messages in the thread.
- Poster of the Year is the one catergory that does not accept nominations but is awarded by our panel of judges. It's not an annual award but will be given out whenever the judges believe there's one list member whose posts have stood out for the quality of writing over the course of the year. Some years we haven't had a compelling candidate, but this year we do!
About that panel of judges: In the early days of the Listies (before our awards were even given the name "The Listies"), I, your moderator, acted as sole judge, jury, and presenter. Over the next few years I started informally consulting a floating mix of family members, friends and neighbors. They're kept anonymous so that they won't be subject to undue influence!
Next week, Saturday, November 29, watch this space for the five nominees in each of these two categories: Best Animal Story and Best Query.
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* It all got started in December of 2012, but it originally went under the title, "The Listserv Year in Review." We didn't think to name our "best of the Listserv" column the "Cleveland Park Listies" until three years later -- 2015.
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The Still Life with Robin column is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
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