Elaine Vigneault thinks I'm a whiner!

 I started writing this post at 4am this morning as a reply to a comment left by Elaine Vigneault. It quickly expanded beyond that and rapidly warranted a post all of it’s own.

So here it is Elaine, a reply to the comment which you thought I’d remove.

The background!

Elaine Vigneault called me a whiner today! It made me chuckle a little. I haven’t been called a whiner since I was 5 years old.

I don’t whine! I rant, rave, shout, roar, stamp, throw full blown temper tantrums and then roar some more for good measure. 

I could teach many a chair throwing CEO a thing or two..

Whining indeed!

So, why does Elaine Vigneault think I’m a whiner?  Well in order to understand that, you’d need to read a recent post of mine: “How the Link Whores killed Technorati Favorites!“

To cut a long story short I called everyone who participated in the “Technorati Favorites Exchange” meme a “Link Whore” and accused them of breaking the system in order to generate a .. well let me just quote myself instead:

The “Technorati Favorites Exchange”meme may garner some Google juice for the blogs involved and it may give them a little temporary exposure on the top 100 Technorati favorites list, but it rapes Technorati favorites of any value for the rest of us.

There’s more..

But I think that’s not enough. The people involved in using the “Technorati Favorites Exchange” meme have collectively shown what a greedy, selfish and self obsessed bunch of link whores bloggers can be.

While all of these bloggers were on their crusade for that one extra hit, that tiny bit of Google juice and that one handed self indulgent pleasure of seeing their blog temporarily crack the Technorati top 100 favorites, NOBODY, none of them stopped to think that gaming the service like this ruins it for the masses of other bloggers who actually see a value in the service.

Now, I would recommend you go and read the original post because there’s a lot more to it than that.

While you’re at it you should also read “I know what the Link Whores need!” which was my follow up post on the matter.

In the interest of completeness you should also read “Technorati favorites: Not worth it anymore” by Amit Agarwal and “Technorati Favorites – Is This Evil, Lazy or Just Smart?” by Andy Beard. These two entries prompted me to write my original post.

Finally you should read “Blogging Productivity & Criticizing Goals” paying particular attention to the comments as Andy and myself have a good back and forth about the TFE meme.

To be honest, I don’t expect you to read all of the posts and comments. It’s a lot to get through, but if you do, you’ll get some good content with good strong opinions from both sides of the argument.

If all you read is the original post you’ll have done more than Elaine! 

The Comment!

Okay, before I get stuck into things I’d better repost Elaine’s comment in it’s entirety (Elaine thought I’d delete it! Can you believe that? She’s obviously not an O’Flaherty reader and she didn’t look at the comments policy):

Technorati encourages this! No one is gaming them or abusing the system. This is actually ONLY helping Technorati. It’s encouraging people to use a system that’s currently almost completely neglected.

PS I favorited you just because I’m nice like that.

Oh, but wait. I don’t actually like your blog (this is the first time I’ve read it). So, according to your article, I’m wrecking the system because I took the advice in your first paragraph and I favorited your blog. Are you going to whine about that, too? (Funny, I’m currently the only person who favorites your blog.)

 

The Breakdown!

Now lets get into this one little step at a time. For the rest of this post, whenever I quote Elaine, it will be taken from her comment, or her post on the matter: “Technorati Favorites Exchange Experiment: Whores, Prom, and Pig’s Blood“.

Technorati encourages this!

They do, do they? How so? Have they made a statement to that effect:

Rowse emailed Technorati’s CEO. I emailed Technorati, too. No response. Technorati has nothing to say on the matter… yet.

The reason Technorati has nothing to say about it is probably because they like it

So silence is an endorsement?

It couldn’t be that they’re trying to get a handle on what’s going on and trying to find a way to reconcile, within the system, the gulf that has originated between 2 sets of passionate people.?

It couldn’t be that any statement one way or the other could do the service more harm than good and it may be best to wait until the “storm has lulled” before risking alienating a particular set of users?

It couldn’t be that your head is firmly planted between your bum cheeks now could it?

This is actually ONLY helping Technorati. It’s encouraging people to use a system that’s currently almost completely neglected.

You can make up your own mind on that one readers! I’ve given you my opinion on it and many great bloggers have expressed theirs on both sides of the argument.

Make up your own mind.  Exercise your freedom of will and thought!

Elaine obviously can’t:

PS I favorited you just because I’m nice like that.

Oh, but wait. I don’t actually like your blog (this is the first time I’ve read it). So, according to your article, I’m wrecking the system because I took the advice in your first paragraph and I favorited your blog.

Elaine, I never advised you to favorite my blog!

I simply pasted a button into my post. A button which serves two purposes. 1 is to display the Technorati favorites graphic, as that is Technorati favorites was the focus of the post, and the second to give folks who do consider my blog to be worthy of a “favorite” an easy means to do so.

I assume you have free will enough not to click something simply because it says so?

I don’t actually like your blog

You don’t like my blog! Good for for you! Line up and stand proud because you’re most definitely not alone. I’m not here to be liked. I’m not here to reinforce your ideals, your beliefs or your individual perception
of reality.

I’m not here to make you feel comfortable!

I’m here to express my opinion and hopefully make folks think outside of their usual box for a few minutes.

If you can’t handle that, you know where the back button on your browser is!

(Funny, I’m currently the only person who favorites your blog.).

You’ve already displayed a complete lack of free will, as you clicked the button and added my blog as one of your favorites, when you clearly stated you don’t like it.

I stated in the post, and it was correct at time of writing that this blog had been marked as a favorite 60 times, you still claimed that your the only person who favorites this blog. You were number 66 to favorite this blog.

Your lack of free will, coupled with your inability to read properly and your inability to count, makes it appear as if you have a poor IQ for a glass of water.

Why did you think those pictures of other peoples face are on O’Flaherty’s “Favorited By” page? Did you think the were their just to watch you say “hi” to you?.. Poor thing!

I sincerely hope these free will and number issues don’t extend beyond blogging for you!

Other wise, armed with a credit card, you must be every marketers and every store owners dream. All they have to do is throw up a “Buy this” sign on any piece of crap and you’ll buy it. Even better, you can’t tell the difference between 1 and 66 so they could probably charge you anything they want and you’d happily take it.

Lemmings have it SOOO easy…

Ignorance must be bliss.

I’m a hypocrite?

Yep, sometimes. We all are from time to time, but in this case I believe I’m in the clear:

The vocal nay-sayers are hypocrites

Apparently Darren Rowse doesn’t use Technorati favorites much so him writing about the situation makes him a hypocrite.

He claims the “favorite me” meme is inauthentic and “games” Technorati. But as other bloggers have pointed out, Rowse barely uses the Technorati favorites himself.

Well, I’m definitely a “vocal nay-sayer” and I definitely use the service. I’ve currently got 157 favorites and I subscribe to all of them.

Lets look at that for a moment:

DOES NOT USE TECHNORATI                  NAY-SAYER
—————————————-   (plus) + ————— (Equals) =  HYPOCRITE
USES TECHNORATI                                        NAY-SAYER

DOES NOT USE TECHNORATI                  NAY-SAYER
—————————————-   (plus) + ————— (Equals) =  HYPOCRITE
USES TECHNORATI                                        NAY-SAYER

NAY-SAYER
————— (Equals) =  HYPOCRITE
NAY-SAYER

NAY-SAYER (Equals)= HYPOCRITE

You’ve got to love that logic, right?

Why should we listen to Elaine?

We shouldn’t and she’s told us why in her post (emphasis mine):

Critics argue that adding blogs that you don’t read or like to your favorites list undermines the system. Well, I don’t care about the system. It’s not my system. It’s Technorati’s system. They’re the ones profiting from it, not me.

She doesn’t profit from it and she doesn’t own it, so it’s perfectly okay to screw it up for everybody else!

I wonder if Elaine has the same sentiments about other things in life?

I wonder if she’d feel the same if a bunch of people just decided , just for their own personal gain, to screw with a system that she uses and gets value from?

Elaine, I’m amazed that you can still ride that high horse with head so far up your own arse.

You slate Darren Rowse for expressing an opinion about a service he doesn’t use much, and then wax lyrical about it yourself while admitting that you don’t care about it.

With that in mind, I must say you’ve got balls, and you must have quite some set, to call me out for expressing my opinion about a service I actually USE and care about without even reading what I wrote properly?

He called me a whore?

Some folks may get the impression from Elaine’s blog that I called her a whore specifically.

If you do, check out my comment at O’Flaherty (unless he removed it). Hahaha! Hey, he called me a whore first, what’d you expect?

Let me just quote what I said:

The people involved in using the “Technorati Favorites Exchange” meme have collectively shown what a greedy, selfish and self obsessed bunch of link whores bloggers can be.

Let’s look at that last bit one more time:

bunch of link whores bloggers can be.

But I’ll go one step further and say that all serious bloggers (myself included) are link whores.

I’ve referred to myself as a link whore before. I even said it this week:

Yesterday I called my friend Andy Beard and a large sway of the blogosphere “Link Whores”! Well you are! We all are. I’ve confessed that I am one on more than one occasion.

Being a “Link Whore” is a fundamental part of the blogger/podcaster/vlogger psyche. If you aren’t one, if you don’t want more people to read or view your opinion or work then you have no business being a blogger.

If you’re not putting yourself out there, link baiting, commenting on other blogs and trying new things to drive traffic to your site then you’ve got no business calling yourself a blogger.

 

Remove thy self!

I’ve stated on numerous occasions that I don’t want votes on services, or lists, or people joining community lists that I didn’t earn. I don’t do the reciprocal thing for all the reasons in mentioned in the linked posts above and for all the reasons I’ve mentioned in previous posts unrelated to TFE but for other services.

So Elaine, you don’t like my blog, but it’s marked as your favorite.

Is it to much trouble to ask you to remove your ”favorite” or doesn’t the hypocrisy extend to that?