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Greetings eCanada,

As a new week begins, it’s time to announce nominations for the Shameless Plug Award for Best Article: Feb. 1st to 7th. For those unfamiliar with the SPABAs, the award showcases writing that does its best to educate, inspire, or entertain eCanadians. This week’s prize is 150 CAD, a tripling of the last prize due to Augustus Baldwin’s generous re-investment of his award money.

To summarize this week’s worth of prose, let’s say it’s been politics, politics, politics. With the recent elections, there was a spate of campaigning articles and related reporting filling up the news listings. Except for one excellent business article nomination, the Shameless Plug has nominated the best of the bunch.

1. “Canadians Deserve Better” by Zanalan of the National Commentary.
The Plug: Zanalan brings us a heartfelt appeal reminding eCanadians about the “bad old days” of Canadian Politics. It is a well worded, well paced piece that would make even the most partisan mud-slinger put down his placard and say, “What have I been doing?” The anaphoric flourish at the end clinches this nomination.
Best lines: “I urge all Canadians to press for a campaign of issues. I urge all Canadians to reject the campaign of rumour, innuendo and name-calling. Canadians deserve to know the issues.”

2. “Change in CEP Leadership” by Bruck of Brucks News
The Plug: The publication of this article positioned Bruck as a no-nonsense, old-time soldier with a tough job to do. Looking past the rhetoric, you can see the tension building over the difficult decision Bruck has to make. This article captures the drama of back-room talks and crisis management that makes the political process engaging, yet still wants us to see what is really at risk for eCanada.
Best Lines: “Too much is at stake this month to cloud the elections with a game of unending one-upmanship on the news feed. Whether it’s hostile or courteous, it’s all one big distraction.”

3. “The Freeholder Press endorses…” by Alias Vision of The Freeholder Press.
The Plug: Alias Vision presented us with a balanced overview of the top three presidential candidates. It would be hasty to call it a summary of all platforms, but what it does do is take a fair look at the strengths of each contender. The logic behind endorsing Zanalan as a means of preserving the cabinet and eCanada’s stability is well devised.
Best Lines: “Especially during the presidential debate we saw all three candidates raise the level of discourse, steer away from attempting to score cheap political points and present their positions and ideals in concise and clear fashion. We should all be proud by such statesmanship.”

4. “Canadian Presidential Debate” by Gofarman in cooperation with Joey Phillips of The Yellow-winged Darter.
The Plug: As a newcomer to eRepublik, Gofarman shows signs that he will indeed do just that. His idea to host a presidential debate over IRC and then have it published in The Yellow-winged Darter was a smart move to better inform us about election issues. Joey Phillips deserves equal praise for helping make this accessible for all eCanadians, so the nomination goes to both. With improved scheduling and formatting, this inception could become a useful tool for the eCanadian public.
Best Question: “Since government companies increase deflation and are an expensive of the Canadian treasury, do you believe we should temporarily close or re-consider these companies or perhaps even sell off some of the companies for gold acquisition?”

5. “State of the Company: Weyland-Yutani Energy, Day 442” by Weyland-Yutani Corp. of Cross-Border Shopping.
The Plug: As far as quarterly updates go in RL, rarely are they worth reading deeply, except to see how much money you have made or lost. Weyland Yutani Energy has taken this overlooked genre (if we can call it that) and turned it into a tutorial worth checking into. WYE’s last report was short-listed for the previous SPABAs, so the time has definitely come to showcase this piece of business exposition.
Best Lines: As an employer, though, I'd prefer a company with as many active employees as possible - having exactly ten employees may double our productivity, but if they're all zombies then we're getting 200% of zero.

Those are the Final Five nominees for this week’s Shameless Plug Award. Please take the time to check out the articles if you haven’t seen them before. It’s worth the time and it’s worth the vote. Tell us who you think did the best work. Polling will close Feb. 11 at 14:00 PST.

Here is an honourable mention to all the articles that were on the shortlist and deserve recognition.

“Revelations about the Canadian Social Democrats” - Another entertaining read by Augustus Baldwin, but with his donation of 100CAD to The Shameless Plug, it might look as though he bought his next nomination. As a newbie publication, we have to avoid scandal to keep ourselves afloat. Plus, we know he’d win anyway so it’s only fair to give others a chance.

“The OG Literary Award Winning Articles” – A great concept and fine reading. It just would have been funny to have one award nominate another award.

“We Remind All Canadians” – Kelly Mahoney did a fine job posting links to all the political candidates and keeping the forgetful in line.

“The Dzsudzsak Bookies is Open” – Tamas pointed out some interesting immigration patterns and put a fun spin on it.

And one more nod goes to....
"Presidential Election: Conclusion" - Dominik gave a solid finish to his 4 part series (not 3 part, as some may have though, like me). It's arguable that this one should have made the nominations as well. At least AB has another shoulder to cry on.