Monday, January 01, 2007

I'm not even on the list

Last week I generously offered that Waldo could remove me from his list of blogs if he was worried something I might post would offend him.

Turns out I'm not even ON his list. I thought I was, at one time I had seen my posts come through the Aggregator, but when I looked today I see I'm not on the list of blogs there.

I did say some bad things about the aggregator about 6 months ago, and maybe that's what did it, or maybe I was actually on and Waldo DID read my comment in the middle of the hundreds of other comments and decided to take me up on my offer...

Although if he did, I'd love to see him point to something I wrote on my blog that would make him nervous about my blog offending anybody. I'm a pretty non-offensive person.

Anyway, I just wanted people on both sides of the issue to know that I didn't force Waldo to take my name off, nor did I beg him to leave my name on, and my blog NOT being on his site should not be taken as an endorsement of one side or another in the stupid debate over some stupid internet blogging thing.

One thing's for certain -- I've seen more pictures of Waldo in the past week then in my lifetime, and one was certainly enough.

4 comments:

Charles said...

It's like a cult following, and I know I'd be a bit nervous if people started posting pictures of me (although I'd presume it was for the purpose of printing them out and using them as dart board targets.....)

On the other hand, the newspaper forced me to take a picture so they could plaster it on my column each week. One week they got the picture wrong, and I wrote and told them next time they messed up the pictures could they please swap me with Brad Pitt.

As to being on your list, that's your decision. I'm not asking to be on, and I won't force you to take me off.

My five readers will probably find me either way :-)



(5 readers: obscure reference to a Mel Gibson movie)

Lynn R. Mitchell said...

I was not asked to be removed from Waldo's list, either. He tyrannically removed me which is the danger. Waldo is a tyrant. (Tyrant: One who exercises absolute power.) He said he would be "weeding out the names" in the weeks to come.

And, no, I don't care to be associated with "Waldo's VA" yada yada yada -- it takes an ego to name an aggragator after yourself -- so he doesn't have to worry about reinstating me. I prefer the true neutralism of Blog Net News (BNN).

Disappointing episode in the blogosphere -- growing pains. In the words of President Bush, "You're either with us ... or against us."

Adversity shows who your true friends are.

Charles said...

Well, this isn't the war on terror, it's just some bits on a network, so I'm not sure the "with us or against us really applies.

And it seems to me Waldo put his name on the aggregator just so everybody would know it was his to edit and set up as he saw fit -- which it always was, and he's just trying to make a point, although I think it's not the real point of contention.

It's part of the misdirection, because Waldo is really being attacked for his violation of his own principles of non-interference that he invoked to justify many offensive posts from the left -- but nobody wants to have to defend their principles, so the argument is "shifted" to blog ownership, which was never in question from the other side.

Charles said...

I disagree with your assessment that people are "using" your aggregator to attack you, or for anything else.

People are using their own blogs to "attack" you. You are running software on your blog that captures the posts on their blogs and puts them on your blog -- so it's you who are using your blog to post "attacks" on you.

I doubt there is anybody who is deliberately posting to their own blog simply so it shows up on your aggregator to aggravate you.

In fact, I've only today read someone who claimed that the aggregator WAS a factor -- and that was someone who claimed that the guy that "outed" GGD was editing his post again and again to keep it at the top of the aggregator list (no idea if that was true or not, I just read it somewhere).

BTW, I went and read the aggregator, and remember why I didn't like it. There's all these RK feeds, really stupid stuff I'd love to respond to, but you can't respond on the Aggregator, and I'll be d*mned if I'm going to "register" with that site simply to make the vain attempt of correcting their absurd ruminations.

And of course, when there were blogs you COULD simply respond to by comment, I'd spend all night running around leaving comments everywhere, and because of the primitive nature of most of the blogosphere and my technical ineptness, I'd never be able to go back and see if anybody was reading or responding to my comments.