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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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?

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.