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

From: <hjr.pythian_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:42:44 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <a3ebe229-2049-4d37-a739-8e502264cf22@f10g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>


On Jan 16, 11:16 am, joel garry <joel-ga..._at_home.com> wrote:
> On Jan 15, 2:37 pm, dizw..._at_gmail.com wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> But it doesn't affect them all the same.

No, it doesn't affect them all the same, which is why I was quite careful not to say that it did. What blogs an aggregator chooses to aggregate is down to his or her own choice plus whatever representations he or she receives from blog owners wanting to be aggregated.

The fact remains, all aggregators of Oracle-related blogs would have been affected.

>Otherwise, why would
> oraclick still show the tags and orana not? Neither has been taken
> offline - would you say oraclick was entirely up and running to begin
> with? I wouldn't. I think oraclick just demonstrates what happens
> with a rating system that lacks a critical mass. But I did see a tag
> that I wouldn't have otherwise, for good or bad.

Oraclick is quite new, I think, and I've never actually used it. (Which isn't the same thing as not caring about it). It's not a blog aggregator as such: blog aggregators merely tap into a blog's RSS feed and suck up whatever happens to flow past and combines the streams from all blogs into one super-stream that flows on chronologically. Oraclick seems to be a 'vote my article' site: readers click on an icon displayed on a blog whenever they read anything they think is of particular note. When lots of readers vote similarly, that article gets promoted on Oraclick. If people keep voting for it, it stays promoted to the top of Oraclick's pages. That's as I understand it from a quick first-time visit just now, anyway.

All of which means that if Oraclick was displaying chain letter blog posts, it means people are even thicker than I gave them credit for: not only do blog owners engage in chain letter distribution, but readers actually like the stuff and therefore vote for it as newsworthy !

One born every minute, I guess. And another reason for recognising that I have even less in common with this "community" than I could have imaginedm and disassociating myself from it accordingly.

Anyway: that's a side issue. I'm very specifically talking about the damage done to blog aggregators, a category in which I wouldn't include Oraclick, which provide a useful centralisation service when there are hundreds of possible blogs to be visited and read in turn. A service which, however, is then vulnerable to being swamped when blog owners pour pollution into their own private contributory streams.

> I think we may all know more than we wanted to about the rise of this
> behavior.
>
> Maybe we should all blame Tom's beard :-)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_...
>
> jg
> --
> @home.com is bogus.http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061015/news_1m15garcia.html
Received on Tue Jan 15 2008 - 19:42:44 CST

Original text of this message