Wednesday, December 08, 2004
ON BLOGSHARES
I have a special feeling for what I write. No matter how good or bad it is, what I write is always part of what I am and who I am. So are my blog posts. Especially when I often work on my blog template to make my blog “my kind of place” to express myself. My blogs are my little universe that reflects what I have in myself, and my writings there are almost like my own children.
The great thing about blogging is that it gives me an extra joy of “sharing” my expressions with others and getting responses from all over the world. Such interactions brought into my life by blogging added so much to my life. My blogs are the places for such interactions to happen. Therefore, to me, my blogs are not something to be put into monetary value.
When I found that my blogs (more precisely, virtual stock of my blogs) were sold/bought in a game called “Blogshares,” I was so surprised. And honestly, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise. I understand that most people are interested in some kind of ratings of their own blogs, and don’t mind if the ratings were indicated by how much virtual money their blogs are worth. I can also imagine that seeing increasing amount of virtual dough by selling something can really amuse some people. But the thing is, I’m NOT one of them.
For a player of this game who intends to sell/buy the stock of my blogs, my sites probably mean nothing but mere “source of monetary gain.” That is, however, not the way I see my own blogs. Even though I don’t have the right to control how others see/treat my blogs, I at least wanted to have the right to choose whether I let my blogs listed in that kind of game or not. What really got on my nerve was that my blogs were included in the game totally without my knowledge. But probably it was my fault… maybe I should’ve done something about robots or spiders, right? Something that this obachan has to learn to keep up with modern internet communities… Yeah, it was me who wrote “it’s never too late to learn” in this blog before.
Anyway, I made a request today to delist my sites from the game of Blogshares. I assume they'll be delisted sometime next week (or could be later.) Please don’t take this personally, but some people already did what they wanted using my sites. Now it's my turn to do what I want for my own blogs.
The great thing about blogging is that it gives me an extra joy of “sharing” my expressions with others and getting responses from all over the world. Such interactions brought into my life by blogging added so much to my life. My blogs are the places for such interactions to happen. Therefore, to me, my blogs are not something to be put into monetary value.
When I found that my blogs (more precisely, virtual stock of my blogs) were sold/bought in a game called “Blogshares,” I was so surprised. And honestly, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise. I understand that most people are interested in some kind of ratings of their own blogs, and don’t mind if the ratings were indicated by how much virtual money their blogs are worth. I can also imagine that seeing increasing amount of virtual dough by selling something can really amuse some people. But the thing is, I’m NOT one of them.
For a player of this game who intends to sell/buy the stock of my blogs, my sites probably mean nothing but mere “source of monetary gain.” That is, however, not the way I see my own blogs. Even though I don’t have the right to control how others see/treat my blogs, I at least wanted to have the right to choose whether I let my blogs listed in that kind of game or not. What really got on my nerve was that my blogs were included in the game totally without my knowledge. But probably it was my fault… maybe I should’ve done something about robots or spiders, right? Something that this obachan has to learn to keep up with modern internet communities… Yeah, it was me who wrote “it’s never too late to learn” in this blog before.
Anyway, I made a request today to delist my sites from the game of Blogshares. I assume they'll be delisted sometime next week (or could be later.) Please don’t take this personally, but some people already did what they wanted using my sites. Now it's my turn to do what I want for my own blogs.
posted by obachan, 12/08/2004 05:36:00 PM
9 Comments:
commented by 
Island Dave, 12/10/2004 8:28 AM
Island Dave, 12/10/2004 8:28 AM
Oh, and to answer your concern about how your site got on BlogShares:
We use weblogs.com as a source for adding new blogs, so likely, when you publish your blog, it pings weblogs.com. We simply incorporate the information into our database, and then manually sort through the trash (non-blogs, link farms) that naturally get thrown in.
We use weblogs.com as a source for adding new blogs, so likely, when you publish your blog, it pings weblogs.com. We simply incorporate the information into our database, and then manually sort through the trash (non-blogs, link farms) that naturally get thrown in.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hi Island Dave,
Thanks for your comment. I guess this is a matter of individual preference. You might find certain things beautiful and fascinating and others may not. It’s just that I’m not the kind of person who's interested in leading more people to visit my blogs this way. It is OK that my blogs will be removed from both Blogshares and QuackTrack. I appreciate your taking time to visit my site for explanation (including how you add new blogs to your game). BTW, I made my delist request following an instruction I found somewhere in Blogshares site. Hope it didn’t cause you any inconvenience.
Thanks for your comment. I guess this is a matter of individual preference. You might find certain things beautiful and fascinating and others may not. It’s just that I’m not the kind of person who's interested in leading more people to visit my blogs this way. It is OK that my blogs will be removed from both Blogshares and QuackTrack. I appreciate your taking time to visit my site for explanation (including how you add new blogs to your game). BTW, I made my delist request following an instruction I found somewhere in Blogshares site. Hope it didn’t cause you any inconvenience.
Great piece. You just spoke for me. My blog is me. It's also some kind of therapy, to de-stress.
Have a great weekend.
Have a great weekend.
You're welcome. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'll see that your blogs get removed this evening. (And yes, you did the request correctly :) )
Cheers.
Cheers.
> Faze --- Wow, I’m so glad to know that there’s someone who feels the same way.
> Island Dave --- Thank you. Hope you have a nice weekend, too :)
> Island Dave --- Thank you. Hope you have a nice weekend, too :)
obachan, I'm glad you've gotten a courteous and quick response from Blogshares on unauthorized listing. I have not been quite so lucky, and other weblogs of mine continue to be added to their trading, even though these do not ping weblogs.com at all.
Hi brownpau,
Like you, I found out that my blog was involved in the game when I went through my referrer logs.
Before I made my delist request, I visited their forums and saw some nasty cases of delist request being ignored, so I had some idea of what to expect. Then I found, somewhere in their website, an instruction telling me to make a delist request by clicking on the [ReportError] sign on top of the page. But to use that function I had to make a Blogshare account, and like you, I couldn’t find a way to delete my account, which was kind of annoying.
So I was VERY surprised when Island Dave himself took the time to visit my blog and made such a courteous response, as you called it. I was glad, and impressed, too. The only problem is that when I tried Blogshares search today, I found “obachan’s scribbles” still listed. Maybe it was delisted once and put back on again? Because I pinged weblogs.com? Is the only solution turning off the ping option? But why do I have to be automatically involved in the game just because I pinged certain site in the first place? That's what I don't understand.
Anyway, I’m going to make another delist request, but I do want to see some changes in the way they get people involved in the game.
Like you, I found out that my blog was involved in the game when I went through my referrer logs.
Before I made my delist request, I visited their forums and saw some nasty cases of delist request being ignored, so I had some idea of what to expect. Then I found, somewhere in their website, an instruction telling me to make a delist request by clicking on the [ReportError] sign on top of the page. But to use that function I had to make a Blogshare account, and like you, I couldn’t find a way to delete my account, which was kind of annoying.
So I was VERY surprised when Island Dave himself took the time to visit my blog and made such a courteous response, as you called it. I was glad, and impressed, too. The only problem is that when I tried Blogshares search today, I found “obachan’s scribbles” still listed. Maybe it was delisted once and put back on again? Because I pinged weblogs.com? Is the only solution turning off the ping option? But why do I have to be automatically involved in the game just because I pinged certain site in the first place? That's what I don't understand.
Anyway, I’m going to make another delist request, but I do want to see some changes in the way they get people involved in the game.
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"OBACHAN" means a "middle-aged woman" or "aunty" in Japanese. .*************************. Having moved back to my hometown in April 2009, I live in one of the desperately underpopulated areas in Japan now. Let me share my life in a real countryside with aging parents living in the same house. And here in Muroto -- the place where I chose to live -- you can hear the heartbeat of the Earth! ;)
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I'm sorry you want your site off of BlogShares. It is really a great way to present your blog to browsers. The trading of shares is really only one part of the site, and rather than reducing your blog to a "source of monetary gain", will actually lead many people to stop by and visit your blog (which is beautiful, btw).
We've just launched a new service using the BlogShares database called QuackTrack, the largest categorized blog index in the world. Since your blog is to be removed from BlogShares, it will also no longer be available through QuackTrack.
If you change your mind, or would like more info, I'd be more than happy to discuss it more in depth with you. Feel free to drop me an email at islanddave at gmail dot com. Once delisted from the site, it is quite difficult to get it added back to the database.
Cheers, and I hope to hear from you.
--Island Dave