To Vote or Not to Vote --
How the RugCats Feel about Web Fights and Contests

Maybe this is the first time you've visited The RugCats' Rag. Or maybe you've been here before and are visiting us again. Either way, we thank you for coming to see our pages and to get to know us better. We're so glad to see you.

Perhaps you've noticed that there are no voting links on The Rag. Well, there's a reason for that. You see, we no longer post any voting banners on our pages. Nor do we enter any contests. Why?

We believe that we do the best we can on our website. The RugCats work hard to make our pages entertaining, fun, and maybe even a little informative. And we cherish the awards that people have given us. We cherish those people who visit us, read our stories, look at our pictures, and then give us one of their beautiful awards. They used their valuable time to visit.....and that's what makes them very special people indeed.

We do not enter contests, site fights, or web brawls. Many of these contests have nothing to do with how beautiful a website is or how entertaining or interesting a site may be. They are based solely on how many people the site owner can get to vote for his or her website. That's the only criteria! If we want our site to win, we need lots of votes. That's OK, if we know many, many people and can talk them into voting for us on a daily basis. But if we don't know that many people, then what do we do?

Well, then we would probably have to join one (or more) "voting clubs" or get involved in "voting exchanges" or "web walls." Such groups involve voting for many people every day. And in fact, with some of the clubs, we don't even have to visit every site we're voting for. So how do we know what a website is like? The truth is, we don't know. Nor are we going to visit every website in a club; some of these clubs or groups contain dozens, if not hundreds, of sites. So if we want everyone to vote for us, then we must vote for them, too. Everyday. Frankly, we don't have time for that. We prefer to spend our time eating or sleeping (cats need a lot of sleep, you know!)

And if we were to get caught up in the voting frenzy, and if we did win an award, what would it really mean? Did we win because people thought our website was truly beautiful? Did we win because people actually pawed through our pages? Of course not! We received the award because we exchanged votes with hundreds of people, many of whom probably never even bothered to visit the Rag. Is it worth it? Not to us. What pride can we feel by displaying an award that we received simply by joining a voting club or web wall? There's no reason to be purroud of such an award. And when we visit other sites that carry such banners and awards, we can't help but wonder how many people the site owner had to exchange votes with in order to "win."  Vote exchanges should not be used as a way of winning competitions, but as long as they exist, fairness ends up in the litterbox. In our opinion, the most beautiful or worthwhile sites are often overshadowed by mediocre pages, simply because certain owners know how to "get out the vote."

So that's why we will not accept invitations to all those site fights and why we don't enter all the contests out there in cyber-land. And that's why we treasure all the people like you who like to visit us. And that's why we truly cherish the awards given to us because people like you think that we deserve them.

Our heartfelt and appreciative purrs go to each and every one of you!

Purrs and Noserubs from the RugCats:
Whisper, Banshee, Bootser, BooBoo, and Ms. Pepe