Like any "best" list (ahm), or list in general, The Voice's "Best" list is a way to compile and rank a lot of disperate information to make some kind of definitive statement about its object, in this case, the whimsy and ever-change of NYC.

Sadly, the whimsy and ever change reported by Jason Gross in his excellent Ye Wei Blog, is that the Village Voice "Best Of" issue did not feature byline credits for individual entries. There cannot be such an imperative for tight character counts that (JG) cannot be included at each submission conclusion. The logic of this exclusion seems to me to be one of corporate control over individual creators - the removal of the agency and individual voice of the author for the generic single-author of the corporation. Every publication has a house style, but most publications that pride themselves on good writing temper house style with individual voice, and only in moments of extreme judgment will use anonmous authorship. Voice authors are being paid competetive but not living wages for their labor and the prestige and recognition of the byline is often a substitute for fair economic renumeration: no byline and small wages means a writer is doubly screwed and most good writers in time will drift away from this kind of insulting treatment.

This is yet another dark position that the New Times/Village Voice Media group has taken towards the producers of creative content/intellectual property/writing. If you love good writing, demand to know whose words you are reading.