Begging vs. earning links vs. white male tech gatekeeper snobs |
Shelley Powers’ dissed meter is twitching again.
I’ve seen and experienced firsthand the clubbiness that Ms. Powers talks about (I don’t like the ‘A’ word, though) and this seems to summarize how she feels about people in this group who don’t link to her:
When people are critical, don’t label them with being a bitch, shrill, hysterical, whining, flaming, or any combination of the same. If this environment was full of people who only smiled, who only agreed, who went around as if we’re all partaking of joy joy juice, and nary a harsh word was heard–you wouldn’t be where you are today. You need us. You need us, a hell of a lot more than we need you. Your fans may make you feel good, but it’s your critics who made you famous.
Let me add ‘wack job’ to Shelley’s list, which is the label one popular blogger chose recently for me (now proudly a former reader) because he didn’t like my flames over nuking all his past comments, but to his credit at least he linked me in as part of the conversation. Nevermind that I was the only person (that I saw anyway, I’m sure somebody else somewhere offered help) who ultimately gave the guy a two minute one line code technical solution to the whole mess — which he has still ignored to date. Just because people disagree agree with you doesn’t mean they are any of the labels Shelley or I mentioned. In fact, I think when someone tries to sink in a debate to namecalling or stereotyping, it weakens their position severely.
I may not like the words that some people choose to use when disagreeing with me, nor may I appreciate getting flamed over something I’ve said or done, but dammit if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. You know what, as humans, we are wrong all the time. We aren’t perfect. We are flawed. We make mistakes. Today you might make one and so might I. Maybe this blog entry is a mistake. We will say or do something that we wish we could have back. Human beings don’t admit they are wrong often enough today.
The key is to learn from these mistakes and not to make them repeatedly. That’s the hard part. Making a mistake is easy, not making it again is supposed to be easier. And for too many, sadly, admitting to making the same mistakes over and over and over again is hardest.
This time Shelley guides the laser on Doc Searls, but I remember a “where’s the linklove” post from her about Dave Winer too. She has also spoken out against how women have a tough time getting links. This is a recurring theme for Ms. Powers. Her post and others raise the spectre of a much more serious topic — discrimination — and that’s something I haven’t written a lot about. Not here, anyway, yet. Here’s my chance and let’s hope I don’t screw this up.
While at Northern Voice, I read about a blogger named Ed Dunn who claimed TechCrunch Michael Arrington was snubbing his search engine service because he was African American. An allegation which Arrington swiftly and strongly refuted.
Like several others who commented on this story, I hadn’t heard of Mr. Dunn’s Fooky search service either. I noticed immediately that the logo wasn’t very original with the different colored letters. Pressing on, I submitted a ceremonial vanity search there for “TDavid” and it returned several of our sites including this one with the same: ‘no description available.’ This was only one search but is Fooky acting screwy? What do I need to do to get Fooky to realize there should be a description available for at least one of our sites? Maybe I’m missing something here … ? Am I supposed to put those descriptions in Fooky? Not an instantly pleasing new search experience, Fooky.
Just for the record, I don’t think all white male tech bloggers at the tops of these lists behave the way Ms. Powers suggests. I think some of them legitimately want to point out what the little guys are doing and not give more exposure to the same groupthink over and over again. By following the current crop of blog news aggregation services can definitely source many of the same names and lead to clique conclusions.
Let’s see if I can add all these negative words together: white male tech bloggers in the club are chauvinists, racists and snobs, did I leave any out? If any of these accucastions are more than hot air then note to the person(s) holding the admission tickets: please do not ever let this white tech blogger (moi) into this group. I’d rather sit on the sidelines maintaining some level of intellectual and social integrity than be part of these type groups. If that costs me traffic, fame and fortune, then so be it, I’ll make money in other ways.
Can’t help wondering as this blog gets more traction if it will be moved closer and closer to being wrongly assigned to these type of groups? Sort of like a ship being sucked into a black hole. I wonder if this is part of what concerns Ms. Powers on a deeper psychological level? That she gets noticed for when she bitches — which is the very thing she is complaining about. How ironic — not — that Shelley’s post is near the top of tech.memeorandum as I write this, so she has been assimilated into the group by (nicely) flaming the group about its close-mindeness.
Surprise, surprise, I can’t change my skin color and ethnicity. Can’t change my age (I’m getting older by the minute). I could change my sex, but my wife would probably miss the equipment (wishful thinking, I know). I can change those who I choose to associate with and none of the groups outlined above do I have any interest in joining.
Still, I bet right now there is somebody, somewhere who feels that they aren’t getting any linklove from Hmm (me) and should and there are a list of reasons why s/he thinks I’m not linking to them. Note to this person or persons unknown: that’s a steaming pile.
I link to stuff that makes me go hmm and it doesn’t matter if your site, product, software, service, blog, whatever is brand new or it is the hottest new thing from GYM. In fact, I sometimes intentionally do not link to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft because I’m sick of reading about them too. I also do not factor in whether to link to stuff based upon the author’s race, sex or sexual orientation, age, etc. In fact, sometimes the nicknames that people use confuse me as to if they are male or female anyway, so how would I know?
How to send a private message through this blog
Readers, please tell me what interesting experiments you are up to, especially if you have a blog, so that I can follow your writings as well and occasionally talk about what you are doing. If you worry that you might be spamming, then do the following:
1) add the word: PRIVATE to your comment and
2) add a few extra random characters to your name so that it thinks you are somebody new commenting. This will hold our post over in the moderation queue. First time commenters/comments are always held for moderation. So if your regular posting name is Jim Smith you might use ‘Jim Smith 8y3jb3o’ as the name and the system would hold you over.
The value of legitimate, relevant comments
I see every reader who takes time to make legitimate, related comments as being helpful to this site and to me and enjoy reciprocation. It’s part of the reason I don’t like using rel=’nofollow’ on comments and speak out against others who treat commenting like it’s some sort of leprosy. Readers can be and usually are a valuable part of the conversation and nobody else will tell me differently. Look at a post like this one RE: Netflix throttling and tell me that the comments are not more valuable than the post itself?
If a blogger wants to be on his own lecture circuit, that’s fine too, but Hmm isn’t that type of blog. Enjoy and be a part of this site if you want, or don’t, but don’t be completely lame and say just because your site doesn’t get linked (ever or often) it’s because of some discriminatory action by a member of an elitist group.
Ms. Powers seems to have been set off by the gatekeeper discussion between Seth Finkelstein and Doc Searls, commented on by Adam Green’s post where the discussion and debate is over the secret, cool linklove handshake. As you can see I tossed all of them links but in the course of normal reading probably would have passed on the whole philosophical soap opera. Why? Because it’s mostly blogging about blogging about blogging and the horse is not only beaten and dead, it’s a decomposed sack of bones. Searls, Finkelstein or Green didn’t say anything revolotionary, exciting or new, only said it using a bigger thesaurus. I grow weary of reading people who don’t follow the KISS principle (and I don’t mean the band in makeup rolling out Detroit Rock City). Maybe if one of them would have have offered some sort of meaningful solution it would have piqued my curiosity further, but as it stands, it seemed more like flatulence than futuristic. Did I miss the solution part, or just get the bitching part?
Shelley Powers’ post actually had some more meat on the bones — cutting through without all the intellectual masturbation and saying: “what about me?” — and made me stop and reflect because this is a horse she keeps riding. Whenever she mounts that brazen stallion, she gets noticed for it: irony 101 or planned venting? And what about Ed Dunn’s racism claims? Yeah, that made me think too. Made me realize that no matter what we do on this great earth, somebody somewhere will always feel slighted about something. Oh, and if you have yet another search engine and can’t get people to look at it because of the product/service itself, make a strong, serious discriminatory allegation about somebody in the spotlight like Arrington.
How to get linked
If you want to be linked for something you’ve done, then do something extraordinary. Be different, unique, rise above the zillion other things being said, written and done today. Avoid echo chambers. The reason I didn’t post Saturday’s live blog posts made at Northern Voice is because they didn’t pass my own crap filters; my posts just weren’t that interesting or worthwhile. Be your own toughest editor and critic of what you do in life. Is it any good? Would you link to it? Why not? Answer these type of questions honestly and you’ll receive and earn plenty of linklove. It might take days or months or even years and maybe your project will never be as popular as you think it should be, but keep trying and you will break through. It will happen no matter what obstacles either exist or are imaginary.
Discrimination definitely exists out there, but the most discriminating person about what you do should be the person staring back in the mirror.
Did this post make you go hmm?
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I went to visit Fooky.com (if you know any northern Brits, you’ve got to love the name). I’m always up for evaluating a new search engine. Anybody who has the balls to go up against Google in that space gets at least a modicum of respect in my book. But I can’t say I was impressed with this one. My vanity search did find a lot of sites where my name occurs (looks like the identical list from Google actually), but like yours they all say “No description available”. Furthermore, even though some of the sites only have my name on specific pages (for instance, in the comments on entries in this blog), but the “found” links are only to the main page for each site. Nobody is likely to find any reference to me by starting at http://www.makeyougohmm.com. Another beef: ENTER only starts the search if you’re using Internet Explorer. In Firefox or Opera, you have to either tab to the Enter button or click it with the mouse. Not very cross-browser friendly. Back in the days when it was only Netscape singing its interminable swan song vs. IE, you could write for IE only. But nowadays a lot of people (including yours truly) have begun to prefer Firefox or Opera. I plan to blog about that pretty soon myself.
Comment by Sterling Camden — February 13, 2006 @ 1:18 pm PST
Small correction: “Finkelstein”, not “Finklestein”.
Regarding “If you want to be linked for something you’ve done, then do something extraordinary.” - actually, I’ve found doing something extraordinary does not get linked, because it’s not popular on it’s own, and I’m not popular with gatekeepers. In fact, something mundane seems to get linked more, just because people relate to it better. There’s really a wide gulf between the theory and the reality.
“It will happen no matter what obstacles either exist or are imaginary.”
Sorry, it won’t. This is the best-of-all-possible-worlds argument that’s repeated, because people *want* to believe it. Doesn’t make it true.
Comment by Seth Finkelstein — February 13, 2006 @ 5:11 pm PST
Seth - my apologies on your last name, that’s unacceptable, sloppy and will be fixed in short order
I’m curious, why do you think lists are so popular? People like lists. They find them useful. I would classify, generally speaking, lists as extraordinary. Especially if it’s a list that nobody else has compiled. Those things get linked up like crazy by people.
And for your “sorry it won’t” comment, sorry but it will. Almost everything good that has happened financially to me online has been a result of hard work, not focusing on the little things or trying to get the attention of the major bloggers. So I’m not just running at the mouth, I’m actually a living, breathing example. I do not mean this disrespectfully because I spent all of five minutes at your blog and this might be entirely offbase and incorrect but I’ll go out on a limb. Maybe if you put your effort into creating content, tools, and useful destinations instead of worrying about who links to you then you can experience this situation in greater frequency too?
I don’t buy the whole nonsense about some elitist crowd controlling everything on the web. Screw that. You have more power than you think, Seth, so start using it by doing something extraordinary. Google was just two smart guys in a garage at a time when people were total naysayers about search, remember?
Comment by TDavid — February 13, 2006 @ 5:21 pm PST
TDavid, that sort of rhetoric is exactly what prompted my post about cruelty. The point that if the world is perfect, anyone who is not heard must not deserve it, or isn’t working hard enough, so the solution is to exhort and berate them to try harder. You admit you haven’t spent more than a cursory glance at what I’ve done, yet you feel justified in effect at reflexively writing what comes across as sneering personal criticism (”Maybe if you put your effort …”). At this point, I’m at loss to respond, since if you believe that sort of criticism is valid no matter what, there doesn’t seem to be anything that you would agree refutes it.
Comment by Seth Finkelstein — February 13, 2006 @ 5:44 pm PST
Yeesh, cheer up, Seth. Yes, life is sometimes unfair. But in my view, if you keep on concentrating on doing things well, the rewards will follow eventually.
On the present topic, I think web content is about the most democratic vehicle ever. So what if you don’t get link juice from the heavy hitters. Unless your page is living on an Internet island somewhere, it will get indexed. If the content is useful, it will get found eventually.
Comment by Sterling Camden — February 13, 2006 @ 6:05 pm PST
Oh please, Seth, ‘cruelty’ is reserved for world hunger and far more important things than who links to your blog. You seem really high on yourself here.
The world is far from perfect and so are you or I, didn’t you read my post above? As for reflexive writing? Blogging is reflexive, welcome to 2006. I’m not going to do an exhaustive case study on the background of everybody I write about nor should I be expected to. I will, however, do follow-up and learn from what I’ve written so I learn something about those I interact with and right now this interaction is not going favorably. You seem like someone with a huge chip on his shoulder about what? No linklove? Amazing.
I carefully, not accidentally, preempted my comment with admitting I didn’t know much about you beforehand. If you found that as some sort of “sneering personal criticism” you’re wrong. What part of “I do not mean this disrepectfully” did you not comprehend?
I’m happy to debate the issues in the piece above as long as you make sense (which you aren’t so far, sorry), so let’s debate it all you want, but knock that chip off, ok?
Your initial comment here did cause me to just take another look at your website and see where you linked yourself as a “pioneer”: “Anti-censorship activist and programmer Seth Finkelstein spent hundreds of unpaid and uncredited hours over several years to decrypt and expose to public scrutiny the secret contents of the most popular censorware blacklists. Seth has been active in raising the level of public awareness about the dangers that Internet content blocking software and rating/labeling schemes pose to freedom of communication. His work has armed many with information of great assistance in the fight against government mandated use of these systems.”
Traffic and links are currency on the web, Seth. I’m looking at this purely from a business perspective and content is king, not credentials or community service as noble as it might be. Applause to you for what you did in 2001, but it’s now 2006. I’m not some talking head, I’m going to live by what I create today, tomorrow and the days after that. Nobody put a gun to your head and told you to spend all those “unpaid and uncredited hours” so if that’s what you are bitter about then I can’t help you there.
You wrote: “At this point, I’m at loss to respond, since if you believe that sort of criticism is valid no matter what, there doesn’t seem to be anything that you would agree refutes it.”
So are you taking your ball and going home or what?
(edited ‘crutch’ to ‘chip’ — doh!)
Comment by TDavid — February 13, 2006 @ 6:27 pm PST
Certainly these issues pale before, say, being imprisoned for a crime one didn’t commit, or tortured and killed. Nonetheless, there is a level of mundane living, having a cold, being caught in the rain, or told all lack of success is due to being unworthy, where it seems somehow absurd to retort that e.g. one is not swept away to Abu Gharib. Perspective matters large *and* small.
Regarding being at loss, there is an unfalsifiable algorithm, in the sense that someone can *always* reply that the marginalized person is not working hard enough, the material is not good enough, etc. etc. There’s no point, because there’s no standard of disproof, it devolves into endless personal fault-finding. If you think I have a chip on my shoulder, or I missed your disclaimer (I didn’t), apologies, it’s that again, there seems to be no possible convincing reply to this argument, and it’s extremely frustrating (which does not compare to chronic pain or starvation, of course, but all the same). I don’t know what I can say to you which would impress you favorably while maintaining my fundamental disagreement with your perspective.
Oh, it’s not trivially about “linklove”, that a very constrained way of putting the issue. It’s about the tedium of having to petition gatekeepers to get heard, all the politics that bring on, and so forth.
Meaning no disrespect myself, I think of it as being wary of playing a rigged game.
Comment by Seth Finkelstein — February 13, 2006 @ 7:15 pm PST
Seth - You seem to keep suggesting, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that I’m unwilling to listen to your points so why even try? Is that it? If that’s the case than this is defeatist, don’t you think?
I get that you disagree with me and you’ve used a painstaking number of words to make that clear. Professor Strunk: “Omit needless words! Omit needless words!”
Let’s move past the just give up part and onto actually trying to convince me that your argument is about more than “it’s hopeless trying to convince you.” Tell me who, what, where, when, why and how you think you can’t make a splash in this “rigged game?” Feel free to link up any posts or essays already written that will give me a better roadmap. I read your two most recent blog entries and they don’t get me to the local mini mart, much less to your city.
And then let’s dissect these words: “It’s about the tedium of having to petition gatekeepers to get heard, all the politics that bring on, and so forth.”
Why should you or I have to “petition” anybody reactively? Why not be proactive? If you think something you’ve done should be linked more or discovered by a relevant party — and I’m sorry for putting this back on you and making it sound more personal than I intend this to be (I keep using “you” but any reader seeing this can insert themselves into that word) — but what are you doing about making this happen? Where is the solution? Maybe you could submit your extraordinary pieces to relevant publications for better exposure? (not a critcism, just an honest suggestion)
Just so you know I’m practicing what I preach, yesterday I submitted and today had accepted my first piece at Lifehacker.com. If you go over there right now you’ll see it and the traffic is flowing. You see, I created something that fit their niche and shared it with them. I’ve admired their blog for a long time — been a regular reader — and am delighted to have them accept my first submission. Why can’t you do the same with your work in relevant publications? Are you already doing that? If there is a top list blogger who writes a lot about an area of which you have a speciality that he/she/they haven’t covered, why not drop them a personal line and tell them about it?
If you aren’t taking any interest in their publication why should they take an interest in yours?
[Note: I suppose technically this is proactive activity is a form of petition, but it sure seems like a more appropriate way than writing blog entries about how link stingy some of the top bloggers may or may not be.]
I also contribute to some large group blogs which are doing some significant daily traffic. In exchange for my posts, I get author byline credit. I also do some paid writing gigs in magazines and online publications. All of this stuff adds up for me and could for you and it wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t being at least a little proactive.
If you don’t work at your promotion, or pay somebody else to do it for you, then why should everything just fall into your lap? I noticed you have your name as your favicon, so kudos on branding there. A Google search on your name yields an impressive 156,000 results. You are definitely out there working at this and my question isn’t what are you doing so much as do you think you are doing enough?
Self-promotion is a job and it’s easy to criticize others and a lot harder to criticize yourself. I’m not trying to be your critic here, Seth, I’m simply suggesting that the person who holds all the cards — perhaps a pair of aces or full house, but not a straight or royal flush — isn’t some blogger on top today who very possibly won’t be there in five years and wasn’t there five years ago. Of the technorati list you cited at your blog a very small number of those bloggers were doing this in 2001 when you received your EFF award. It is very possible that many of these people just don’t know what you bring to the table and by waiting for them to find it on your site and in your writings might only be impeding your progress.
Lastly, you mention the subjectivity of content: “…reply that the marginalized person is not working hard enough, the material is not good enough, etc. etc.” That is the one piece of this puzzle that you don’t get to determine once you’ve hit the publish button, Seth. Readers, netizens, consumers get to vote on that one and maybe you think you did something extradordinary, but the masses might not think so. Whether or not something is truly extraordinary is not just your or my vote. The people decide upon that one. And if you aren’t Stephen King, it might take many years of hammering out horror novels before you are noticed.
Some people get that big break sooner, and some do it through hard work. If your big break hasn’t come yet, or anybody else reading this feels similarly, maybe you are just being too impatient? I’ve seen more businesses fail not because of hard work or lousy ideas or even execution, but because they gave up too soon.
This is what I think Sterling means by “most democratic vehicle ever” above and I totally agree. People will notice extradordinary content eventually.
Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions here. Perhaps I should ask you to point to three extraordinary pieces of content you’ve published that you feel were overlooked and give you my opinion on that? Keep in mind I’m just one reader and one opinion, but if you ask enough unbiased sources (family and friends don’t count) you might be able to find the answer of what I truly mean by extraordinary.
There is a lot of good and even some great content that doesn’t get much exposure out there, I’m not arguing that. There is very little extraordinary content that hasn’t or isn’t being found, especially with sites like Slashdot, Digg and their massive userbase on the prowl.
Comment by TDavid — February 13, 2006 @ 8:49 pm PST
TDavid: Well, as opposed to “defeatist”, I’d say something like “inured” or “drained”. I’ve been down this road many times.
Very short reply (sorry, other commitments call, but I wanted to make some response): As you’ve seen, I used to do activist research into what is actually blocked by censorware, and fighting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I have since given it up, because it was just too difficult for me to get that material heard, and too legally risky to continue. I’m not looking for a career as a writer, I’m doing fine as programmer. Rather, I wanted my technical efforts to have an effect.
I’m an expert witness in an ongoing Internet censorship case, said case being very poorly publicized because it’s being done pro bono and nobody involved is very connected to press gatekeepers.
The point is not that it’s impossible to get gatekeepers to pass one’s material(I’ve had it happen at times). But that there *is* such a structure, and it has a large effect on what gets heard.
The “rigged game” is that there always the reply that the material is not extraordinary content.
Comment by Seth Finkelstein — February 13, 2006 @ 10:20 pm PST
[…] Therefore, I think you have more like a 1:10 or 1:25 chance of getting noticed by these people. Those odds improve dramatically if what you have to say is different, unique and creative. I’ve unsuccessfully argued this point with Seth Finkelstein and he disagrees that extraordinary content has any better chance. I’ve seen other people say it’s all about being buddy buddy with those at the top of the chain. I recently saw Kent Newsome say if he could buy his way into conferences he’d see more link love but he doesn’t have the time. […]
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