This is a warning story to new blogger's in particular. There was a lovely blogger on the my.telegraph website, who wrote a quirky and often humorous diary type blog about her lifestyle, which to most people was privileged, and included horses, public school for her children, she also had a council flat in London, why was never explained, but why should she?
She would amuse many people talking about having to commute between the two homes and what she got up to, her shopping, and the amazing change between being at home up north, and being in the tropical south. Her blogs often had a photo included, which obviously enhanced the blog, the most amusing one for me was one of her grooming her horse standing on a chair, and I sent a comment warning her that the 'ealth and Safety mob would after her, as usual she always responded with charm.
One blog she slipped up, she mentioned that she used a certain bus to travel on and that she had been interviewed on this bus by the local paper, as this wasn't bad enough she wrote a very tongue in cheek blog about her flat, which she said would fit into her bathroom at her northern home.
The verbal vomit started from some boggers on the MyT site. Now as I said I enjoyed the blogs and I saw nothing wrong with them. I found them a wonderful insight into someone elses life, very different from mine, obviously from a wealthy and privelledged background, but written in such a funny and quirky way, that was refreshing, they made me laugh with some of the terms she used, the antics of the selection of animals she shared he life with, (not counting children and husband). There was nothing to be jealous or envious of as we have our own lives for better or for worse.
As I said the verbal vomit started, accusations, and some very unpleasant comments that got worse and worse. Some bloggers tried to defend this poor lady, but it fell on deaf ears. One nasty person even had the audacity to track down the article she had mentioned and posted the link and other links. There excuse was that this was already in the 'public' domain so they were allowed to do this. The lady was upset, she felt that her privacy had been invaded and that if she had wanted to post the link the choice should have been hers to take, and I agree with this point.
Within 24hours this had got worse, with some sad moron deciding that they would take this even further and made up an ID in her name, on the MyT website, and then posted a very nasty blog in her name. This was to say the least very upsetting, and I must confess fooled me, and I was one of those who supported her, and was fooled enough to post a comment.
This wonderful lady has now ceased blogging and I feel that I have lost something I enjoyed for the sake of a few nasty short sighted people who were determined to 'take her down a peg or two'. If they had a problem with her blogs, they needed to ask questions and get her to explain what she meant, that is debate and trying to understand something. I saw nothing that was offensive and I have high morals I think. It was just a lovely insight into another world, it may never win a booker prize, but then doubt J.K. Rawling would win a booker prize either.
I know that i and several others will miss the quirky museings of the person I have written about. So the warning to new bloggers is as follows:
1. Do not take it for granted that everyone is 'nice'.
2. Never post pictures of your family on the net, especially children.
3. Never post anything up on the net that can identify you, unless you are certain that this is what you want.
4. If you do post on a blog site, be prepared for some cruel critism, as some people are unable to be nice, for one reason or another.
Monday 12 November 2007
My Telegraph
I joined My Telegraph blog site, part of the Daily Telegraph. Here I though I was going to get some intelligent debate and refined argument. To a certain extent that was true. I met some great characters, who were intelligent, funny, quirky, but I didn't realise it but I had walked into the 'Flame Wars'. Which were to ruin, possibly the most brilliant blog site on the net.
There was one character who I'm going to name, Phil Slocombe, who appeared to have at the last count approximately 15 - 20 alternative ID's, and this one person has managed to single handedly ruin a site that attracts people from all around the world.
The way you can tell that this person had so many ID's was easy, if you looked at the comments he received from other bloggers, there would usually be at least one or two praising this guys writing ability, so far in the extreme, that it was laughable, but if you checked these ID's out you would often find that they had seldom if ever posted a blog, and that the majority of the comments they made were only for for Phil Slocombe. One of them even suggested he should become a politician.
At one time on the My Telegraph site you had the ability to vote and to save blogs that you had read and had enjoyed. In the short time that I was on this site, there was rarely a day went by without Phil Slocombes blogs being out of the top five, but most of the voting seemed to have been done in a very strange way at very strange times, and was at the very least very suspicious.
The Telegraph Team known affectionately as Blog Central tried to stop this blatant abuse of this wonderful system, and removed, the Hot Topic Button, (or the red zit as we called it), removed the most popular, and most read and most saved catagories and put up a new home page. Everyone was extremely pleased and I think that on the whole everyone thought that this was a move for the best, although there was some lamenting that by loosing the most popular etc, it didn't help those who were maybe logging in late due to different time zones, and they used this facility to see what had been going on in the previous 12 hours or so.
But, oh yes, there's a, but, within a few days of my writing a blog thanking everyone and saying how nice the site had become, guess who reared up again yes PS. At first I thought that he wrote a very good blog on the Japanese F1 GP and I was happy to comment on this, and I got a reasonable reply, but by Monday 1st October 2007 the 'Flame Wars' errupted. Mr Slocombe decided to post a very pompous blog, which insinuated that he had close ties to the Mclaren F1 team but he included this comment.
There was one character who I'm going to name, Phil Slocombe, who appeared to have at the last count approximately 15 - 20 alternative ID's, and this one person has managed to single handedly ruin a site that attracts people from all around the world.
The way you can tell that this person had so many ID's was easy, if you looked at the comments he received from other bloggers, there would usually be at least one or two praising this guys writing ability, so far in the extreme, that it was laughable, but if you checked these ID's out you would often find that they had seldom if ever posted a blog, and that the majority of the comments they made were only for for Phil Slocombe. One of them even suggested he should become a politician.
At one time on the My Telegraph site you had the ability to vote and to save blogs that you had read and had enjoyed. In the short time that I was on this site, there was rarely a day went by without Phil Slocombes blogs being out of the top five, but most of the voting seemed to have been done in a very strange way at very strange times, and was at the very least very suspicious.
The Telegraph Team known affectionately as Blog Central tried to stop this blatant abuse of this wonderful system, and removed, the Hot Topic Button, (or the red zit as we called it), removed the most popular, and most read and most saved catagories and put up a new home page. Everyone was extremely pleased and I think that on the whole everyone thought that this was a move for the best, although there was some lamenting that by loosing the most popular etc, it didn't help those who were maybe logging in late due to different time zones, and they used this facility to see what had been going on in the previous 12 hours or so.
But, oh yes, there's a, but, within a few days of my writing a blog thanking everyone and saying how nice the site had become, guess who reared up again yes PS. At first I thought that he wrote a very good blog on the Japanese F1 GP and I was happy to comment on this, and I got a reasonable reply, but by Monday 1st October 2007 the 'Flame Wars' errupted. Mr Slocombe decided to post a very pompous blog, which insinuated that he had close ties to the Mclaren F1 team but he included this comment.
Nowhere do I claimk to be mates with Ron Dennis. I happen to have sent him some ideas regarding aeros,pit stop procedures and driver safety which might shave a ferw tenths off the lap times. If I do not receive my expected pit invitation before I fly on Wednesday I will just have to watch with the rest of the crowd
Well the wars started again, with another blogger writing a satire, which in reality was a lightly disguised attack on PS. Having been sucked into these 'Flame Wars' once I had had enough and I decided to leave this site which I felt very sad about and I did it by posting this blog.
'Well after saying thank you to everyone for a pleasant few days with no crap flying around I woke up this morning to see more crap flying around in all directions and I for one am getting fed up of ducking.
We have had the opportunity of a fresh start, which some of us have grasped with open arms, and have been rewarded by some excellent bloggers either returning to the site or popping in, and have had some good blogs to read and comment on as a result.
There have been a few hiccups, I did notice that one blogger couldn't resist making very nasty, pointed and personal comments on a few peoples blogs, but that is in that persons sad nature, and if it is reported quick enough it should be picked up and gone before too much offence is caused or retaliation, but this morning has taken the biscuit.
Outragous claims, satire (I don't think so - sorry) and some very nasty comments flying around very undisguised. So I'm off, I shall keep an eye on things and if this crap does finally go away for good I shall be back.
Thanks to everyone who I have met here and have made this enjoyable. To the nasty two faced people who have to use multiple Id's and who cannot resist making the nasty comments, well shit is shit, and you can't change that.'
The comment about personal comments is a direct reference to PS as, as well as being suspected of having multiple ID's he could also write some of the most nasty and personal comments about people on their blogs. I know because it happened to me, and I deleted all my blogs at one point because he was deliberately following me around like a stalker through various other peoples blogs, and all I had done was comment on one of his blogs that I had written a similar blog to the one he had just published, and wouldn't it have been better to have commented on this instead of posting a new blog. Well talk about becoming abusive. I couldn't believe the abuse that came out of him personally, then followed up by several of his other ID's, all because of an innocent comment. Up until that time I had been aware of the 'Flame Wars', but had not been involved and didn't know what was going on, this was my introduction to the Wars.
Unfortunately Blog Central appear to either be reluctant, or scared to remove this one offensive blogger, despite the fact that many people had consistantly complained about this man. In the end I had enough and I left the site yesterday, but felt the need to post one final blog which is as follows as I had received a lot of very complementary responses.
Hi guys, thanks for all the comments, even those that aren’t very complementary. Just to clear up a point for Keith, “The height of vanity and pomposity: announcing one's departure.” To sum up your quote succinctly, B*LL*CKS, this wasn’t, as you put it an announced flounce, it was me saying look the shit has started again and to be honest I can’t be arsed with it, if you want to see vanity and pomposity I would suggest you look at someone else’s blog, and I’m sure you’ll know where to look.
I became disillusioned when I saw one of my favourite bloggers, who has made me laugh and think, getting sucked in hook, line, and sinker and I could see no end to this, as it now appeared that the update had just made people more devious about how to carry on the conflict, and I admit I got sucked in last time, and didn’t want to get sucked in this time so I gave a warning sign in the shape of my blog and thought bugger it, its not worth it, especially as I was getting angry myself at the way something was written and the responses, one of them obviously by yet another fake ID.
I had enjoyed one of HWMNBN (He Who Must Not Be Named) blogs very much and had deliberately avoided writing a blog myself on this subject, as I knew he could do a better job, and he did, and I enjoyed commenting on that blog and pointing out that there was an amazing passing manoeuvre he hadn’t mentioned. He responded well and I was satisfied. This morning there was a very pompous blog and this started things off again, the rest is history.
What I have found is that I do miss this site and I miss some of the debates, arguments and jokes that don’t become personal, but if you see this site as a microcosm then you can see why the world is in such a bloody mess, because we can’t seem to make points without getting nasty and in some cases, personal towards to each other. Its for that reason that I have decide to Flounce as its so quaintly called, what I call it is, my right to leave this site and to write a blog as to why, without some pompous git having to read something into it that isn’t there or intended. So yeah I will pop back every now and again, but I have decided not to blog or comment only to read.
I hope that clears things up.
It is with sadness that I have left this site, as at least there, there is a live response, whereas here it feels strange and rather lonely, with very few people bothering to read blogs let alone comment on them.
I wish that Blog Central had taken the courage and had confronted PS from the begining and even if only to warn him that he was not have multiple ID's and to give him an amenesty to name them so that they could be removed by blog central, and given him a warning about his future conduct by email, or best of all by just deleting him completely, after all it is their site not his, and if they felt that there was enough evidence or even not enough eveidence just get rid of people who are making trouble, would have settled the whole site down very quickly without having to withdraw the great facilities that the site has had to loose all for the sake of one man and his many ID's. I think the MyT team have been very airy fairy about this whole episode and haven't acted with strength and authority, which is a shame for everyone and for me.
The only advice I can give is don't use the My Telegraph website until Blog Central sort it out.
Tuesday 2 October 2007
Morality
Being able to cheat, but not succumbing to cheating has to be admired. I know that there are many people out there who are extremely clever, but don't abuse their abilities, and I like to think that I'm one of them. Yet there are people out there who will quite happily cheat to raise their own profile, and they will do it time and time again.
I currently have two websites that I have written or am in the process of writing, one is for the care home in which I work, and the other has a forum about the CSCI who have caused the care industry a lot of problems because of rogue inspectors. With these two websites, which are essentially mine I get 5 email addresses, I also have an email address with my service provider, Yahoo and hotmail, so in total I have at least 13 email addresses I can use with complete impunity at any one time. I choose to only ever use one email address for personal emails, and that is my hotmail address, which I've had for over 7 years. The only other email address I use is directly related to my work and this one never gets used unless in a professional matter.
With blogging I feel it is important to build up trust and not to abuse that trust, therefore I always sigh up to such sites with one ID, here it is david231153 and on the MyT site it is antipolitician, these are the only two ID's, and each one is separate from the other and each one is only used for the site they were signed up to. To me this is about having morals and scruples and to me its not the thieves, the liars the yobs who rule the world, but the people with morals and scruples, hence antipolitician as an alias I don't think that politicians have either morals or scruples (maybe one or two do, but you'd be hard pressed to find them amongst the numerous liars).
I am also becoming interested in the style of the MyT blog site and I'm seriously thinking of trying to find out how much it would cost to put that up on one of my sites. I know that I can already get a free php blog site all I have to do is download it and set it up. No problem as occasionally I work with a friend who runs the networks for several schools in the area and also has his own company, but I like the style and versitility of the MyT site, but the difference would be in the way it would be moderated. I would not allow multiple ID's and if someone were abusing the site then they would be deleted without a second thought, after all why pussy foot around, thats why we have criminals only doing half their sentence because we are too soft on those that abuse others.
I currently have two websites that I have written or am in the process of writing, one is for the care home in which I work, and the other has a forum about the CSCI who have caused the care industry a lot of problems because of rogue inspectors. With these two websites, which are essentially mine I get 5 email addresses, I also have an email address with my service provider, Yahoo and hotmail, so in total I have at least 13 email addresses I can use with complete impunity at any one time. I choose to only ever use one email address for personal emails, and that is my hotmail address, which I've had for over 7 years. The only other email address I use is directly related to my work and this one never gets used unless in a professional matter.
With blogging I feel it is important to build up trust and not to abuse that trust, therefore I always sigh up to such sites with one ID, here it is david231153 and on the MyT site it is antipolitician, these are the only two ID's, and each one is separate from the other and each one is only used for the site they were signed up to. To me this is about having morals and scruples and to me its not the thieves, the liars the yobs who rule the world, but the people with morals and scruples, hence antipolitician as an alias I don't think that politicians have either morals or scruples (maybe one or two do, but you'd be hard pressed to find them amongst the numerous liars).
I am also becoming interested in the style of the MyT blog site and I'm seriously thinking of trying to find out how much it would cost to put that up on one of my sites. I know that I can already get a free php blog site all I have to do is download it and set it up. No problem as occasionally I work with a friend who runs the networks for several schools in the area and also has his own company, but I like the style and versitility of the MyT site, but the difference would be in the way it would be moderated. I would not allow multiple ID's and if someone were abusing the site then they would be deleted without a second thought, after all why pussy foot around, thats why we have criminals only doing half their sentence because we are too soft on those that abuse others.
Blogger Cheats
There is another great blogging site called my.telegraph, but it is basically ruined by one person who seems to want to have people believe that his posts are so important that he has to artificially raise their profile.
This got so bad that the MyT team had to change the whole format of the site because of this one person. So how do you cheat, its easy you just invent lots of really strange names and personalities with false email addresses, then sign up to the site in question.
There is no come back because the MyT team haven't cottoned on to this yet despite being told numerous times.
What makes it sad is that this one person has managed to out manoeuvre the MyT team and has recommenced his devious nasty tricks, but it takes a really sick, sad and lonely person to have to invent so many "friends".
You ought to read my other blog http://mytelegraph.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-telegraph.html
This got so bad that the MyT team had to change the whole format of the site because of this one person. So how do you cheat, its easy you just invent lots of really strange names and personalities with false email addresses, then sign up to the site in question.
There is no come back because the MyT team haven't cottoned on to this yet despite being told numerous times.
What makes it sad is that this one person has managed to out manoeuvre the MyT team and has recommenced his devious nasty tricks, but it takes a really sick, sad and lonely person to have to invent so many "friends".
You ought to read my other blog http://mytelegraph.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-telegraph.html
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