Sunday, July 27, 2008

Going BaNaNas

As some of you have noticed, I have recently taken the position of Wisconsin Editor for BNN. The job sounds a lot more prestigious than it really is. All I do is monitor the blogosphere on occasion, adding new blogs that meet the criteria and removing blogs that aren't active anymore. That's it. I have no influence on the influence rankings or anything like that.

Well, my tenure started out with a less than auspicious start when Cindy Kilkenny, author of Fairly Conservative, decided she wanted off of BNN's roster. Her original objection was to some of the ads that sometimes appear on BNN's home page. It has since morphed into accusing BNN, and its owner, David Mastio, of stealing her property and violating "Fair Use."

Shortly after Ms. Kilkenny started her crusade, Patrick Dorwin, owner of Badger Blogger, has also raised his objection to being on BNN's roster, with the accusation of BNN stealing his work.

David Mastio, in his own blog, has acknowledged their complaints, but has stated that he is not violating Fair Use.

Well, over the past few weeks, there has been a small flurry of post, comments, and attempts at technological trickery regarding BNN's readers and their ability to read these posts going back and forth.

I have not written about this before for several reasons. One, I don't have a horse in this race. Sure, I'm the editor, but I am doing it to help other new bloggers have a chance to get noticed and to help real conversation going on. Secondly, I have been having a bit of fun watching it all take place. You see, Mr. Dorwin and Ms. Kilkenny are obviously conservative, as is Mr. Mastio, who used to be a speech writer for one of President Bush's cabinet members. It's like watching a conservative circular firing squad. Thirdly, in my humble opinion, it is all rather silly.

Ms. Kilkenny and Mr. Dorwin have not expressed similar displeasure about other entities using their work in similar ways. In fact, Ms. Kilkenny has even boasted about having one of her posts on the editorial links at Wisopinion.com, until she deleted it. Likewise, Mr. Dorwin, who has criticized the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for some of their advertising decisions, has not raised an issue, as of the time of this writing, with them for using his material in this morning's paper.

Nor have they complained, publicly, about Google or Technorati or Wisopinion.com. Nor have they complained about other bloggers who have linked to them, cited them, and/or quoted them, and also have ads on their websites.

It should also be noted that both of Ms. Kilkenny and Mr. Dorwin have ads on their blogsites. They have both cited and quoted other bloggers and news media sources. Does this mean their in violation and are stealing other peoples stuff? Of course not, but it does display how silly these things can get.

And with all their complaining, their still high on the influential ratings chart. (Meanwhile, Cognitive Dissidence has yet to crack the top twenty. Shows my level of influence, eh?)

For another opinion, I offer the post of a fellow BNN editor, Tracy Coenen, who's real life career is being a forensic accountant.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and I don't know if Ms. Kilkenny and Mr. Dorwin have a legal case or not, but I would guess that since other bloggers have tried, and Mr. Mastio is still in business, Mr. Mastio has the law on his side.

With all that said, I also have to say that I think they are right. If they want off the roster, they should be allowed to be off the roster. I think it is a silly thing to want. After all, every blogger has a big ego, and that ego feeds off of attention. The more sources to get hits, to get attention, and to get their 15 minutes of fame would be better.

I know I write because I want to make my opinion heard. If I was really worried about attention, I would have stayed exclusively at folkbum's or Whallah! which gets a heckuva lot more hits than I have gotten here yet. But even if I end up talking to myself, so be it. It will only help me figure out things for myself. And if others want to share what they feel and think, whether or not they agree or disagree with my position-well, that is what blogging is supposed to be all about.

But like I said, if they want off the roster, that is their choice. Mr. Mastio may have the legal right to do what he is doing, but that does not necessarily mean it is the right thing to do.

But seeing that the two bloggers have not complained about the other aggregators, and Mr. Mastio does not seem very likely to give up what he sees his right, I would suggest that, if possible, Mr. Mastio have the readers for at least these two sites be set up so that it only shows the blogsite and the post title, and maybe only ten or twenty words, instead of fifty, like Google reader. That should satisfy all parties. Mr. Dorwin and Ms. Kilkenny have not raised similar objections to that reader so they should be comfortable with that, and Mr. Mastio would be able to keep two popular blogsites on his roster.

On a side note, I would like to congratulate my good friend, Illy-T, on achieving his goal regarding his BNN ranking.

7 comments:

  1. Thank you. I'm nominating you for a Pulitzer Prize.

    Interesting post too. Thanks for the round-up.

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  2. Cool. Now I can add that on the site as well.

    Sykes will be so envious. Now I've been nominated on two sites, and neither of them came from myself.

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  3. I've watched that teapot-tempest with utter dis-engagement.

    I cannot figure out the motives of the aggrieved parties--but then, few could figure out the motives of Ms. Kilkenny when she was an alderman in Brookfield.

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  4. Capper, I think you are wrong on several points. I'll put it together and post the comment later.

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  5. Chris,

    1) Fair Use dictates that Mr. Mastio should be making something of the work he copies, by adding his opinion or comparing the texts, for example. Simply collecting other people’s 50 words to put on a site from which he derives revenue does not fall under the ideal.

    Mr. Mastio is still in "business" because it is extremely expensive to try this kind of thing in court, and it looks like he's pretty much without assets, so there's nothing to retrieve.

    2) WisOpinion.com links a headline, which is what BNN now does for my site. In addition, WisOpinion.com hand picks those entries (didn't you mention having an acquaintance there?) instead of adding the first 50 words of every single post.

    3) Google is a world-wide search engine, not an aggregator. One would not go on Mr. Mastio's site anticipating information about a new restaurant. He or she would go to Google. Your comparison is absurd.

    4) I stopped running advertising on my site two days before you made your entry. When the template crashed that Friday before, I took the ads off. They had been up since June 20th, a little over a month.

    5) I have successfully blocked other aggregators. Your assumption that I have not complained about them is false. I did not have the resistance with others that I have had from BNN.

    I am up as title and blog headline only now. I'd still like to be removed. I'm not sure why you found it desirable to continue the discussion or use your contacts at WisOpinion to post your blog entry along with another on this subject.

    Finally, I am surprised at the number of accusing statements that you made in this post. As a mental health professional, didn't it occur to you that you were escalating the argument, one in which you claim no personal involvement, with a series of "you" statements? If you want a blogwar, you won't be getting one.

    You see, I actually have traffic on my site.

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  6. Cindy-

    Did you objectively read what was written before you reacted?

    1) I already mentioned I'm not a lawyer. That is why I said I did not know if it was in violation or not.

    2) That is why I suggested a compromise, something no one has even considered, to the best of my knowledge. (And I only said that I gave the editor of Wisopinion.com my name so that he could publish me.)

    3)You're correct about Google. I should have specified Google Reader, which puts up about 20 words.

    4)But you were advertising, and you said that it came down when you had tech problems.

    5)Hence the reason I used the word "publicly".

    I did not submit this or any other post of mine that Wisopinion.com to which has linked. The editor has my permission to use my work as he sees fit. I most definitely did not submit the work of any other blogger. I wish I had as much influence as you try to infer that I do, but I don't.

    Furthermore, did you not notice when I said that you and Mr. Dorwin should be removed? I agree with you, and you get upset?

    And until this comment, I did not refer to you as "you". I used "I" statements to express that these were my opinions.

    And sorry, I am not looking for a war, either. I am simply expressing my opinion on an issue I was dragged into.

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  7. I'll only bother responding to Cindy on her point one. She simply ignores all the things that BNN adds to the slices of the blogosphere it covers.

    1) a Wisconsin blogs search engine
    2) the headline widget that runs on this page and links directly to the latest blog posts in the state.
    3) a blog rating voting system
    4) a blog influence ranking
    5) neutral archives that reflect what was posted when
    6) a state wide tag cloud you can check out here: http://www.blognetnews.com/wisconsin/tagcloud.php
    7) www.blognetnews.com/elections

    It is everything that we build on top of the Wisconsin blogosphere that makes our site "transformative" and thus fair use.

    Cindy can claim that BNN simply collects other peoples' words all she wants. The facts show otherwise.

    ReplyDelete