Saturday Evening Post

The adventures this week were fun, tiring in a way which does not make one wants to rip the hair from one’s head and enlightening. Big news is the most understated way to describe the announcement. Clyde is loaded for bear. Grab your cuppa and snuggle in. Let’s talk.

 M3

We have a large number of new lurkers. I am not calling names; well, not really. Some of the new followers are not ready to leave comments just yet. They have connected through M3 to social media (mostly on G+ and the 5,000 page) where they are more comfortable with the platform.

Check the box!

All newcomers need to know there is an itty bitty box you need to check stating you are not a stinking spambot. Although it has not completely eradicated the spam, I have managed to get the spam down to a manageable two to three hundred comments a day again.

The other box everyone should be checking is the CommentLuv box. CommentLuv is the number one choice of M3 Readers as an exit strategy. Yes, M3 Readers go from this blog to yours.

If you get lost, click on the Welcome Home! button at the top left. There was a new update this week.

Updates

About Momma got a new update this week as well. The big news was added there. Have you seen it? A few from Twitter stopped by to see what was up. Thank you for the Facebook likes once you got there. What am I being cryptic about?

Big News

T3 is live! Free to Amazon Prime members, T3 will be in the Kindle Lending Library until late October. If you are not a Prime member, it is not priced at the top of the scale, so it is not going to break the bank.

If you would like a hard copy, please purchase through CreateSpace. The price is the same, but my royalty is far better. Is anyone interested in the cheat codes for getting through CreateSpace in one pass?

I still have a few copies left to distribute to those willing to write reviews. If you are looking to get your hands on one today, let me know.

There are some bloggers who helped get T3 into print over the last few years. If you are not already acquainted, meet…

The Aware Writer

Suzzle Cakes

Passionate Project Management

A few other special people are listed in the credits and acknowledgments, but you will need to get the book to meet them!

And for all of you who think this book will tell you nothing because you do not have toddlers, you may be surprised how much of the methods in it will let you know about yourself, your friends, your adult children, teenagers (yours and everyone else’s) and those annoying people in your office, inbox and comment box.

Follow Up News

For those of you who made it this afternoon to Hold On, Ethel! there is an update on the piracy of M3. It appears my email to the Automattic CSR was übereffective. Using the terms “piracy” and “copyright violation” got the attention they deserve. What took nearly four days to do, took less than thirty minutes to undo.

The underlying issue of the xml file in WordPress’ possession is another animal altogether. Requests for me to take down the banner are being and will continue to be met with a firm NO. If you have not seen it, do go look. It is one of my favorites of the clipart graphics which M3 has posted.

Meanwhile, the RIM developers of the BlackBerry app have been given my information and the error reports to attempt to reprogram their app not to malfunction in the favor of WordPress.

Right Turn, Clyde!

Right turn, Clyde.

What was originally planned as a complete right turn has derailed into a swerve. Last week’s lament of dysfunctional websites was not meant to be an introduction to the dysfunction of M3. However, it has left us with much fodder for discussion. Let’s let that discussion live on the last post. Instead, let’s talk about basic knowledge.

Read the Instructions

Many a chauvinistic joke has been made about the inability to read the instructions. In the virtual world, we are graced with hundreds of thousands of websites touting the ease with which we can begin using the functionality of the site. In our rush to be “blogging in five minutes”, many of us fail to read the instructions.

Some such instructions include the prohibitions of the things we really want our blogs to do. Some are tips and tricks to getting the most out of a particular feature. (See last week’s SEP on pictures and bandwidth.) Some are even instructions on how to get the scripts not to sabotage our own inability to read the instructions.

Terms of Service

I agree I have read the terms of service and agree to hold you harmless for however I could abuse myself with your product.

To say I am anal about reading the terms of service could be likened to calling the Hindenburg a minor aeronautical misstep. Amid all of the lines claiming the website is not responsible for anything you do to abuse the functionality of their site are revealing tidbits about how much of your labor the site is going to retain in the event you misuse the script and lose what you have done. On this clause, WP is able to hold onto the xml (shadow copy) of M3 from its days in the “free” blogosphere.

When I severed service with them, said xml was not to be retained after the 301 was in effect. (A 301 is a line of code which tells a browser the web address you are looking to view is no longer on the server where it came calling, so it should browse somewhere completely different.)

This misbehavior is like moving to a new house, but the real estate agent replicated all of your personal belongings, like the plaster of Paris hand print your child made in kindergarten and the contents of your underwear drawer, in the house for the next resident. (Why does this sound like a good plot twist for a novel?)

Jargon

Meant to make clicks of users, jargon is the pet names communities have for the features they use. For instance, “reblogging” is a watered down version of the cyber crime “scraping”. M3 Readers have been seeing the end cap to posts prohibiting reblogging of M3 posts since the functionality rolled out to all WP blogs.

While I have no issues with sharing, and provide numerous widgets and memes to make sharing simple, the reblog feature has an added bonus for WP which I do not abide. By reblogging, you are creating a post on your site. You can put in a “comment”, which is in actuality an introduction to the post from the other blog.

A link then attaches to the tail of your “post” pointing your audience to what you reblogged (saving you from reading the instructions on how to link out with the WYSIWYG).  The original blog gets a comment/pingback to let the blogger know a post has been reblogged. Sounds innocuous, right?

That is a matter of opinion. One of the biggest bragging tokens for blogging platforms is the number of posts they traffic in any given day. Since a reblog becomes a post on your blog, how many of the millions of blog posts on WP are merely the sharing of posts written by others?

To my mind, reblogging is the equivalent of hitting “share” on social media. While there may be 1,000 copies of one meme graphic on social media, there are not 1,000 original, independent posts.

Having seen more than my fair share of websites which claim to be content curators which are nothing more than blogs using the reblog feature, I would venture these bloggers with three and four thousand “posts” in actuality have none. They have a link farm.

Integrity

In the entire charade, I have come to the conclusion laziness has invaded the blogosphere. Alternatively, the designers of the reblog feature are attempting to make the blogosphere into a social media platform without the necessity of running any extra interactive or homogenizing programming than the Reader page.

Until next time,

Red Signature

~~~~~~~~~~


Who would do a review of T3 for me? What do you think of the reblog feature? How do you feel about scraping and piracy? What do you think an appropriate punishment for intentional copyright infringement should be? Do you read the directions and the terms of service before you use a website?

© Red Dwyer 2012
Re-Blogging of this or any other post on The M3 Blog
is expressly forbidden.
Copyright and Privacy Policy available
in The Office. 
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27 Comments

  1. I might read those things, but I do not understand them – I’m sure they count on that.

    What craziness!

    Is the name T3 or is that short for… I forget even though I’ve read in previous posts. Reverse swiss cheese for brains. Congratulations. Angie
    Angela recently posted..Time with Grandma!My Profile

    Reply
  2. Yeah Love loved my click the first time…..coffee tomorrow will brighten my day but NO brightened my evening mightily.

    I suspect 301 simply turned in to something neither of us understand, we are gurls you know, not trained to understand these things. I didn’t say that, no indeed not really 😉

    It will be fine my dear chapped friend, I am certain of it. I have insight, clairvoyance even or maybe it is simply faith…..besides we are gurlz don’t you know!
    Valentine Logar recently posted..Now What America?My Profile

    Reply
    • There are so many who assume I, being of the fairer sex (albeit do not get me started on the fairness of sex), may not be all that endowed with mental faculties commensurate with my feminine assets. Silly boys. Coffee is on. 😉

      Reply
  3. An absolute gem of a posting Red and thank you for all of your most excellent information, I have enjoyed reading this one, as I do with all of your well researched postings 🙂 🙂

    It is always a pleasure to call
    into your M3 Space my great friend 🙂

    Have a wonderful
    rest of weekend Red 🙂

    Androgoth XXx

    Reply
    • Glad to see you tonight, Andro. I shall pop over when I am finished posting here tonight. I see you have a new one up for offer 😉 I hope your night has been excellent, my friend 🙂

      Reply
  4. I prefer to be lazy the old-fashioned way. I just don’t post when I don’t have the time or energy. I’ve often wondered about re-blogging. I’ve done it a few times early on but even then it was with a genuine interest in the article that was written.

    Yikes. It’s been a few weeks since my last post. Might have to actually sit down and (gulp), write something!

    Good to see you this fine evening, Red.

    p.s. what is T-3, other than a blazing fast internet connection? [hangs head in shame for not knowing…]
    Phil recently posted..What Better Way to Unwind?My Profile

    Reply
    • Taming the Terrible Twos: A Parents’ Survival Guide. It is a no nonsense look at how toddlers tell you how they are going to act as teens and how to make the behavior better now so it is better later.

      I have been catching up with everyone and finding out they have all been on a summer lull. 😉 You are not the only one!

      Reply
  5. Wow, this was a lot of news to me – a LOT of news. My first impression of one of your posts when I first read one of your posts, was that you are pretty computer savvy – now I consider you an expert in knowing the ins & outs.

    I didn’t read the terms of service. I HATE the idea of someone making a plaster of Paris of all my “belongings” or posts… What do they do with them? Keep them on their site??

    I know you cannot DELETE your WP account, can only make it inactive; I know that. And they say you can delete your blogs. So, my novel in progress, when I make a book of it, I’m not going to have it in draft on my space, I’ll be blogging something different by then no doubt – but will WP have all my drafts somewhere? Please tell… & the copyright is mine, right? But copyright is mine EVEN IF I DON’T STATE IT, isn’t that so? Which laws would apply, anyhow – Australian or US?

    Sorry, I guess that’s all too much….

    In short: ditto what Androgoth said. Great post.
    Noeleen recently posted..Fear and Loathing in Las MelbourneMy Profile

    Reply
    • US law applies. Copyright is inherently yours. It would not hurt to post a copyright notice on your About. Not that it truly means a lot as far as prosecution is concerned. You granted WP unlimited license to display it. If you take it down, it is no longer visible, but I have cannot state with certainty if deleting the posts themselves after publication actually deletes them from the WP server. Read the post before this to understand better why I say I cannot prove whether deleted things are actually deleted.

      You can monetize it offsite, but the original is held in a cyber locker. No, blogs are not deleted. I have never tested here, but on most other platforms if you come back bearing the same login information, you are offered the blog back.

      As to your WIP, do keep a copy offsite. For the disastrous possibility you violate the TOS and get your account suspended. You would no longer have access to the backdoor where you could download them. What you do with it after you post it here is 100% your affair. For me, portions of two of my WIP are on M3, but I do not consider them a total spoiler to the finished products.

      Reply
  6. Reblogging is an interesting feature but I have to admit I feel somewhat ripped off when I see my original post on a “link farm”. The same thing just happened to me with a youtube video I made at the hilltribe village. A Burmese digital newspaper found it and posted the actual video above a political story warning people that the name of “Burma” is actually Myanmar (as the Burmese Army renamed it a few years ago). The name of “Burma” is in huge debate and apparently they decided to use my video to prove their point. Anyway, I’ve seen this reblogging things many times. It’s the nature of the beast we want our stuff out there but it would be nice to get some cret for our words eh?
    Lynn recently posted..Update on Baby PichaiMy Profile

    Reply
    • I was very unsuccessful getting someone from a link farm to take down a piece reblogged from M3. This person had a lot of followers, but from what I could tell, she was just getting those whose things she had reblogged. After more than a week with no original material, I unfollowed, but there are many who are unwilling to navigate the WP labyrinth to unfollow.

      Reply
  7. Apart from one occasion I posted a link to some important information back on spaces (what feels like and eternity ago!) I have not used the reblog feature and have seen a couple of friends get quite angry because they cannot block this feature.

    Also I have clicked on the book giveaway and it didn’t work as I expected so I was unable to leave a comment, but I got one up on the counter so I guess it worked! 🙂

    Hope you have a great Sunday Red! 🙂

    Love and hugs!

    Prenin.
    prenin recently posted..Saturday – The sun peeps through!My Profile

    Reply
    • I did work, but you were to leave a comment on the post!! Leave a comment there and I will validate your entry. {HUGZ} Red.

      Reply
  8. How do the robots get past your high security Spammer button?
    Bearman recently posted..Editorial Cartoon: Obama and Romney Censor ReportersMy Profile

    Reply
    • They get through the spambot button, GASP, Akismet and the two other filters. Most of the new ones are actually human bots. The last three have left C/P comments but made the mistake of leaving them on different posts on different days. My guess is they have no idea I can see their IP addresses and can statistically project when their next comment will appear in the filters.

      Reply
  9. I received the PDF copy of the book and will be reading through it this week. It looks interesting and I am looking forward to it.

    I have allowed reblogging of a post only a couple times, but I have never done it. I think it is a bit lazy. If I want to comment on an article or post I can do that and then link to that blog. I want to write only my own stuff anyway, unless I ask for guest posts. (never have, but I might soon)
    Derek Mansker recently posted..Nehemiah 13- Leadership Leaves a LegacyMy Profile

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  10. Maybe I should look into this reblogging thing. It sure sounds a lot easier than making original content, plus there’s an almost limitless field to steal borrow from.
    Binky recently posted..Summer Trick or TreatingMy Profile

    Reply
    • It was meant as a way to over come the lack of linking available to WP blogs. The ones of the benefits the reblogger gets is a link left on the original blog (the pingback). It is a fishing expedition to get audience to take the bait the reblogger has similar content…end result is more WP page views.

      Reply

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