Lets not go down that road (again)..
My good friend Scot Duke (the author of “How To Play Business Golf“) took some time out to drop a rather lengthy comment on my post “I’m beset by idiots!“.
I know Scot won’t mind me promoting his comment and my response to full post status but I think Scot raises a point here which needs to be addressed.
Paul,
Now that we got the weekend out of the way lets get busy on this one issue… I took a moment away from the sabbatical I am taking to write on my next book to jump back online on this issue since what you and your posse have saddled up to pursue is a growing concern out here in cyberspace. Time is being wasted; bandwidth is being burned up by the fraudulent attempts of these kids who have too much negative energy.Truthfulness is something very foreign to a number of these SEO’s site’s developers. Why is that? I like what Elaine had to say about the propaganda and how Tachnorati is using up a lot of bandwidth. For WHAT?
There needs be a sign or emblem a quality site could put on its front page or home page that indicated that it has been checked out and is legit?…OH, did I just give away an O’Flaherty Business Plan?. Since your analysis of several of the SEO sites we have reviewed together has been on target…I could go with an O’Flaherty Seal of Approval…
That’s dangerous territory Scot, and while your kind words are appreciated it’s something I’d have to suggest we stay away from.
The idea of somehow policing the internet and deciding which sites are legit or not is something I’ve talked about many times before.
What you are suggesting reminds so much of Tim O’Reilly’s attempt to introduce a “Bloggers’s Code of Conduct” with silly little badges and rules for how people handled comments on their blogs.
I was against that. I still am.
Not because his heart wasn’t in the right place but because it involves imposing standards on other sites and people to which they may not wish to conform.
Tim’s efforts actually lead me to crafting my own set of policies for O’Flaherty which Rex Dixon adopted and dubbed “The O’Flaherty Doctrine“.
I strongly believe that sites should have a clear policy, but it should be THEIR OWN policy. It should be written by them to reflect how they want to do things.
If they do that then their readers /users know exactly where they stand but the site owners haven’t had an arbitrary code imposed on them. They simply setting their own rules and are free to grow and adapt them as their site evolves.
Tim’s “failure” (it succeeded in getting us all talking about the issue) thought the blogosphere a valuable lesson. If we impose rules and regulations on the blogosphere en mass we loose the very thing which makes the blogosphere what it is.
We loose our independence, innovation, creativity and restrict our freedoms with the only upside being that we give the folks who promote the “nanny state” the feeling /illusion of being safer.
Make no mistake that the feeling is just an illusion. No “twinkie sheriffs badge” or seal of approval will ever change that.
You can expand this beyond the blogosphere to the internet as a whole as well. As soon as we start deciding what we think is “legit” or acceptable and imposing our will on others then it’s end game for freedom on the internet as far as I’m concerned.
Now, Scot, I don’t wish to sound mean here but Elaine hasn’t got a clue what she’s talking about. She’s very passionate when she talks about this stuff but hasn’t got a clue:
The update: Technorati banned me from adding more favorites and then they deleted all my favorites. They did this to a number of blogs. If you think their ranking system is accurate, you’re wrong.
I have since removed my account. Interestingly, my traffic has INCREASED since I started boycotting Technorati.
The people who matter are the blog readers, the group of people Technorati never bothered to care about. Technorati has yet to prove themselves valuable to anyone but propagandists.
and
Boycotting Technorati was one of the best things I’ve done for my blog.
Like I said before, I think their “service” isn’t one. They don’t provide any actual value.
When was the last time you read a great Technorati article? When was the last time they sent you a valuable reader and not just another spammer? When was the last time Technorati showed you someone who wasn’t a scraper or spammer or linkwhore had linked to your blog? When was the last time you trusted the Technorati search to provide you with accurate information?
Technorati is for spammers and propagandists. Simple.
Let them be ruined by those who profit in the “value” they sell. Technorati and Google created this link economy, they can deal with the consequences. Either improve the system and create VALUE or get out.
Her comments above are, I suspect, the direct result of her being banned from the Technorati Faves service.
A quick search of Technorati shows that they are still tracking her blog (and her coComment feed for that matter).
So while she may be boycotting them, Technorati certainly haven’t stopped providing link tracking and sending traffic to her blog.
Also she says that Technorati is for spammers and propagandists. This from the same woman who argued so vehemently against me in defense of the “Technorati Favorites Exchange” meme.
This from the woman who was convinced it was her right to game the Technorati Faves for her own gain.
Yep, I guess that makes the rest of us spammers and propagandists.
In today’s world of blogging, Twittter and attention deficit disorders you’ve only got a few seconds to get your message across and make an impression on potential readers. 
I’m surrounded by idiots and I’m looking specifically at the gobshite from 
My friend Per called me up the other day to tell me about this laptop 
Last week I won an $10 dollar gift voucher for 
