S. Dawson:
Would it be too cruel to do a series for children with titles of the form "The Unpleasant Truth About Being a/an --------- When You Grow Up"?
In a word, yes. I realize you were kidding, but too many kids in the real world do get the Why Bother, You'll Never Amount To Anything treatment, and that's evil. Unpleasant truths are best presented when we have the self-identity and the fortitude to do our thing anyway, if we decide we still want it.
genibee:
"It sort of bemused me, as it was a very polite email, and could, I suppose, be a reliable marketing effort - except most people loathe spam, and might be moved to leave a bad review at Amazon in retaliation. Has anybody else had this happen? And what do you think of the strategy?"
I wouldn't retaliate, if that's what you're asking. And even if it's technically spam, if the author addressed you directly then it's spam on the very shallow end of the asshole pool. It sounds like a sincere marketing attempt by a person who just wants a little validation. That doesn't mean you should buy the book, of course. (And XLibris is in fact a vanity PoD press, albeit a relatively non-evil one.)
I've done similar myself. When Randy Milholland at Something Positive was talking about online superhero fiction last week, I dropped him a line with a pointer to my blogfic, saying I thought he might like it. I didn't expect anything to come of it, and as far as I know nothing has. I figure the popular sites probably get a few dozen e-mails like that a day. But I don't believe it hurts, either, so long as you aren't obnoxious about it. When you're relatively unknown, the only way to make people aware of something you've done is to tell them.
Teresa:
"Tell me again how sympathetic I'm supposed to feel?"
If that was directed at me, I never said once how sympathetic you're supposed to feel. She's taking money from writers and giving them nothing but horrible colors. That's uncool.
My point was only about her misuse of "blog." I still feel that's a frivolous offense. On her actual offenses, ayup, hangin's too good for 'er. I say let her serve time as a PoD machine. Make her copy out every book in her catalog, by hand, at least 100 times or until all of her authors "see a complete return on their investment," whichever comes last.
Much thanks to those who responded to my question, both here and on my blog. (Yes, it's a work of fiction. But the dilemma between WP and MT is not.)
Another question, hopefully only marginally more annoying than the first one: I notice that, in talking about spam solutions here, the universal consensus seems to be blacklisting and moderating comment attempts. I'm impressed that it's so effective, but as a way to reduce moderation work, has anyone considered placing hurdles before the comment posting? Are there sound practical reasons against it?
I'm not talking about requiring user logins or authenticating via e-mail. Those sound like too much work for the casual commenter. But what about one of those "read this non-OCR-able swirly text and type in what it says" challenges? Would something like that turn off an average reader from commenting? Or putting a time interval between allowed comments?
I know that such plug-ins exist for WordPress, because I stumbled across them, and I'm sure they must exist for Movable Type. Do people not use them primarily because MT-Blacklist does the job? Or because they're perceived as too much hassle for the user?
Teresa:
"The drama would have played better if E.J. Thornton weren’t under the impression that posts to a public bulletin board are called 'blogs.'"
In fairness, this is the sort of nuanced distinction that may not be obvious to someone who isn't already connected to the culture. Now that "blog" is finally entering the public consciousness, it's surely going to get attached to everything, just like "Web" is overgeneralized and "Champagne" is overgeneralized. If you aren't a connoisseur of the form, it largely doesn't matter to you what the differences are.
I give Ms. Thornton mighty props just for finding the right thread of the right Absolute Write board, logging on, and posting. I am not being sarcastic. At a certain level of technical consciousness -- say, the level at which people create Web pages like the first iteration of her site -- that's a genuine achievement. What she calls it after that is really of lesser importance.
Hi. Long-time listener, first-time caller.
I'm curious, in the context of "consider upgrading to these fine, fine software products," does anyone have any thoughts or experiences on the relative spam-killing merits of Movable Type vs. WordPress? I have got to get off of Blogspot, but have not yet made up my mind on which tool to use.
Advance thanks for thoughts, rants, &tc.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 2 |
| 2004 | 5 |
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