Re: can someone please explain what this blog tagging this is all about?

On Jan 15, 8:32 pm, Frank van Bortel <frank.van.bor..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> hjr.pyth..._at_gmail.com wrote:
>
> > If you mean I don't pay for OraBlogs or OraNA, quite right. I don't.
> > So that makes it OK for other people to vandalise it, does it?
>
> Vandalism is your definition. Obviously not of the owner, nor of a part
> of the user community. Actually, you seem to be the only one being
> annoyed.

Actually not. Tom Kyte, Jonathan Lewis... well, I don't say they've been annoyed, but they certainly haven't joined in all the hilarity, have they? Several people wrote on OraNA saying they were not pleased. Look at the post in this very newsgroup below yours.

That you don't "get" it is fine. But you should avoid making judgements about what groups think when you don't "get it". You should also avoid making judgements about behaviour which is predicated on damage being done to a technology you don't seem to fully grasp, too.

> > It's not a service. It's someone's blog of blogs. They take each
> > blog's RSS feed and turn it into a browseable webpage (amongst other
> > things). They thus provide a service to the Oracle community at large,
> > for free.
>
> Make up your mind - is it a service, or isn't it?

It's not a paid-for or sign-up-and-subscribe service in the sense I believe you meant. It's a service provided by someone generously to the Oracle community.

> It is, and it's for free. You use it. If you do not like it, get
> over it, provide your own, better service, use another, whatever.
>
> How often did you change dizwell to a point services did not
> work anymore?!? Re-register, etc, etc? Did someone start raging
> to a level you do? Did not thinks so.

False comparison. If OraNA has to go offline for whatever reasons Eddie thinks appropriate, that's Eddie's entire right and responsibility. If OraNA is taken offline because someone directs a DDoS attack against his servers, that's not OK. What a site owner does with their site is the owner's own affair. When third parties attack their sites, that is not the same thing at all and is not acceptable.

Now, you might not then go then next step which is to see the chain letter as an attach on OraNA (on blog aggregators generally, actually), but I do. You don't have to agree with the point to accept that there *is* a point to be argued.

> >> Is this the heart of the matter? One of your posts became invisible
> >> on one (1) aggregator after just 12 minutes?
> >> Are you in any way depending on how long your posts are on this site?
> >> Financially? Esteem?
>
> > Come on. At least try to pretend you're not just belittling the
> > situation.
>
> Let's pretend I am. Just answer the question.

I did. No it's not the heart of the matter that one of my posts became invisible on one aggregator after 12 minutes. It is that ALL posts at around that time would have become invisible after 12 minutes on ALL blogs. I did say that first time.

> > I measured what happened to my post. If it happens to my post, it
> > happens to other posts. In fact, it happened to all posts at that
> > particular point.

Oh look... there it is.

If you are still asking am I financially affected by the chain mail and its effects on OraNA, the answer is no. I carry Google advertising, so I probably lose rather less than $1 per day by having no visitors at all. Not having some people get 'driven' to the site via a blog aggregator not functioning as smoothly as it used to probably costs me a cent or so per day. So, no: there is no financial dependency aggravating my annoyance at what has happened to the blog aggregators.

> >>> That is a loss of functionality. It is inconvenient to me. It is
> >>> disruptive to me. If it is inconvenient to me and causing me
> >>> disruption, I am fairly confident that it will be inconvenient and
> >>> disrupting to others. Lots of others. But maybe not you.
> >> No - not to me, indeed. And I fail to see the functionality
> >> loss in an aggregator, that is not yours to start with.
> >> Again - if this is a service you pay for, things are different.
> >> If provided for free, it's like this ng - you get what you
> >> pay for.
>
> > Do you pay for Google?
>
> > Do you ever use Google?
>
> > If someone launched a distributed denial of service attack against
> > Google and made it unavailable, according to you that would be fine.
>
> Where did I say that? Do not jump to conclusions.

You said I was over-reacting to OraNA being affected by this chain mail game because it's not something I pay for and therefore I have no rights to expect any given level of service or utility. All I was pointing out was that you don't pay for Google, but it would NOT be OK for someone to make the Google site non-functional so that you couldn't effectively use it for searching. That you don't pay for something doesn't give someone else the right to ruin it.

I also used the example of the suicide hotlines: not something I personally have ever made use of, but I would still consider it unacceptable to tie their lines up with prank phone calls. That you personally don't use something doesn't give someone else the right to ruin it.

That was the only point I was trying to make by way of comparison.

> > Because Google provides their search service for free, so what do you
> > care at the loss of functionality.
>
> I would care. Do not put words in my mouth.

It was a hypothetical. And it made you respond that you **would** care. Great. Now: I care about OraNA not **hypothetically** being degraded in functionality, but actually having been.

> But I'd switch to yahoo, and get on with life. No big deal.

That you would have to work around the problem is not the point. That you would find it a nuisance and you'd care about it is, however.

Incidentally, what blog aggregator would you suggest I switch to on this occasion? Bearing in mind that all aggregators pretty much aggregate the same set of Oracle blogs, what happens to OraNA would also have happened to all the others. (As someone has just confirmed, incidentally). So again, false comparison. You have a choice of search engines to switch to when one gets knocked out. I don't have a choice of blog aggregators to switch to because what knocks one out knocks them all out.

> > Blog aggregators provide a service. Chain letters swamp that service.
> > Therefore this particular chain letter was a bad thing that needed to
> > be stopped.
>
> Well, seems like you failed.

Well, so what? That I cannot single-handedly solve all the problems that afflict the Internet is not a matter for any great surprise! It doesn't mean I just sit by and watch silently, though, when I see reckless "gang" behaviour ruining something I care about.

In passing, though, it is impossible to prove a negative. People are now saying to me, 'Well, it's quietening down on OraNA, so why the fuss?" Who is to agree or deny that it's quietening down on OraNA precisely because I *did* kick up a fuss? One of life's imponderables, perhaps.

Anyway, it's irrelevant whether I failed or not. Fact is, I felt I had to say something to *try* to get it to stop.

>Seems like you upset quite a lot of
> people, that found your site quite useful, by shutting it down.
> I'm one of them - I just needed some information, I knew was on
> your site. I was unpleasantly surprised.

Mmmm. Pretty much sums up my reaction to what happened on OraNA. But as you say, you can always just get on with your life and go read the information on some other site. No big deal, as I think you put it. (And yes, I'm being ironic there).

If the community, of which you are a part, had been rather more vocal in condemning the chain letter than in passing ill-informed judgment on my response to the chain letter, I doubt very much whether I would have felt the need to remove my material from that community.

As I said to you twice now: those who sit silent as vandalism is wrought on their amenities will find they have no amenities left. And yes, it doesn't surprise me that "quite a lot of people" are "upset" to discover that truth, but there you are. What did they expect?

> >> So you can "use" orana. What I get is a "I got mail" server/service?!?
>
> > Look, if you don't know what OraNA is, what a blog aggregator is, what
> > the concept of freely-offered community service is, you're really not
> > in any position to comment on my behaviour, are you?
>
> I do not need to know the inner workings of the latest toy to know
> a spoiled child reacting when not getting it. And I do know how
> to recognize a spoiled child, which qualifies me to comment on
> your behavior.

There's nothing "spoilt child" about this at all. Surprise that intelligent IT people would participate in a chain letter, yes. Annoyance at the effect of the chain letter, yes. Unhappiness at the response to innocuous blog posts pointing out the likely consequence of the chain letter, of course. And then the reflection that a community that thinks this sort of stuff is all just harmless fun is not a community I want to be part of.

I've explained it coolly, calmly and with some detail so that you know the *facts* underpinning my response to the chain letter, but I'm not looking for your approval.

Just so you know, re-delegating names servers, removing content, implementing password protection... these are not actions which are, or can be, done impetuously or in a fit of spoiled rage. They require deliberation and calm assessment.

> > Define "emotionally involved". I have been inconvenienced. I have had
> > functionality I used and relied on withdrawn from me.
>
> > Yes, that annoys me. Yes, I am disappointed by that.
>
> Reread your own words, asif they were mine, complaining about the fact
> you brought dizwell down.

I know. It's terrible isn't it? Just switch to another site, though, and "get over it". Isn't that your advice in these circumstances?

> > Fine. I won't explain myself any more, but please stop, by way of
> > return, making pronouncements about my "behaviour" that you
> > professedly don't understand.
>
> The original "I'm baffled with you behavior" still stands, and
> you still fail to make clear why you overreact the way you do.

You start from a premise ("it is overreaction") that I do not share and expect me to convince you otherwise. I have explained why I *reacted*. You are at liberty to regard it as an *over*reaction, of course. I can only continue to point out that from where I'm sitting, it's a perfectly rational, measured and commensurate response.

> You are of course in no way obliged to do so, but I'm not the
> only one (I did not start the thread), that wonders.

Which is fine. I can understand people wondering: it's the passing judgement without a knowledge of the relevant facts I find bewildering. Nevertheless, I have provided the facts and analogies and comparisons that make sense to me and it's entirely your choice as to whether you dismiss them as spoilt child irrational behaviour or not.

> > That you don't understand the technology is evident, Frank. Try not to
> > dig too deep a hole.
>
> Now, who's belittling?

Well, sorry you feel that way, but your comments about blog aggregators clearly indicate you don't use them and you don't understand them. If you did, you wouldn't say things like "just switch to another one" because you would know that what affects one affects them all, by their very nature. Sorry, but them's the facts. What I was trying to say is, don't try and build too much of a case of such very shaky foundations, If you don't understand what happened to OraNA and why it's significant, that's fine: nothing wrong in not using a service you have no use for. But it's probably not such a good idea to make pronouncements about someone's behaviour when you don't (appear to) know much about the actual reality that has given rise to that behaviour. Received on Tue Jan 15 2008 - 16:37:49 CST