Comments on: Not Talking About Politics

By: Stu

Stu — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:03:43 +0000

I think there’s already been at least one big blog war, but the battle lines are mostly drawn nowadays. People have their rivalries, but the degree of openness around the blogosphere means that few issues can get as far as being scandals.

I’d say Iain Dale being forced to apologise to Tom Watson was a pretty big deal – he is, after all, the most influential of all the bloggers. But once he’s said his mea culpa and apologised, we all go back to whatever it was that we were doing, so I don’t know if it will ever get as bad as the politicians are…

By: ladytizzy

ladytizzy — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:37:12 +0000

I was getting at the historic rise, but no falls, of bloggers. What is the most likely event to trigger shame of a blogger? Is it reasonable to name and shame a blogger over the paid sources?

A strawberry day would be nice.

By: Stu

Stu — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:51:30 +0000

patently, I’d like to think that. Most of my posts come with inbuilt logical missteps to encourage debate, though. Deliberate, of course.

One day, I’ll write a blog post about it. And then no one will comment, because everyone hates blogging-on-blogging…

A completely blank day would be nice. I have too many of them already, though, for someone who’s supposed to be a wannabe iPhone developer!

By: asquith

asquith — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:44:31 +0000

Went to Wolverhampton & saw Glenn Hughes last night- one of my favourite musicians, & he did some proper banging tunes which I hadn’t been expecting to hear.

I have now got a really bad hangover, & didn’t wake up until 12, which is almost unheard of as I am normally awake before 7. But since I had been sleeping badly I must have been overdue the rest & such.

Now planning to just have a completely blank day. I’m not actually feeling as bad as I was earlier on but it’s too wet to do anything.

By: patently

patently — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:38:08 +0000

Yes, Stu, been there. I reassure myself by thinking that the argument must have been so watertight and convincing that no comment was necessary or, indeed, possible!

By: Stu

Stu — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:34:12 +0000

patently, that’s true to some extent, definitely. As I’ve said before, though, I value comments and links far more than rankings or stats (which does make it a tiny bit bruising when a post – in particular a post one is quite proud of – goes entirely without comment, I’ll admit, but we’ve all been there…) because I like the idea that what I’m writing is interesting, whether or not it is influential.

Tiz, what do you think? If it’s bloggers and scandals, I’d expect Guido to be involved, of course…;-)

By: ladytizzy

ladytizzy — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:54:04 +0000

What do you think Bloggergate will be about, and who will be involved?

By: patently

patently — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:24:52 +0000

I’ll just interrupt that to say there is no “shortage” of giggles here, suddenly…

By: patently

patently — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:17:40 +0000

Hmm. But whether they link because they like you or they hate you, they are acknowledging that your blog is significant. Hence an increase in Wikio points…

By: Stu

Stu — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:02:28 +0000

I like to think of Wikio rankings as a very clever marketing scheme which makes people talk about Wikio. You see, I’d never heard of them until I got an email saying I was in the top 500. When your first communication with a company is a self-affirming expression of your success, you’ll probably talk about them in nice terms.

Supposedly, though, it’s a ranking based on how many people linked to your blog – and then weighted by how high on the rankings the person linking came. So I got a higher ranking this month than I would usually because Iain Dale linked here twice, and he’s number 1 on the list.

It’s really a meaningless statistic – people are just as likely to link to you if they hate you and want you to fail as they are if they like you and were interested in what you said. But, it’s another way to rank people, and it at least provides incentives to link to others a lot…

By: Blue Eyes

Blue Eyes — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:47:21 +0000

I don’t understand how Wikio works.

By: patently

patently — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:46:10 +0000

Well, if it was that rude, you certainly won’t want to post it here. You’d only get way with DM’ing or emailing something like that.

Wouldn’t you…

By: Stu

Stu — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:29:23 +0000

Actually, he said something utterly unrepeatable at the end of the show that I now cannot get out of my head or stop giggling at. You’ll just have to buy the DVD for that one One thing you don’t get from the DVDs, though, is just how much his show relies on audience participation – recorded, you remember the one-liners best; on stage it’s the ‘you had to be there’ lines which come from people shouting stuff out to him and him incorporating what they said into the rest of the show. So I could tell you the stuff that made me laugh the most, but it wouldn’t make as much sense to you, having not been there, as it does to me.

When asked what the worst heckle he’s ever had was, he did mention one bloke who just shouted “**** off you’re ****!”. He said “God, if I had £20 for every time that’s happened to me…”

By: patently

patently — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:18:54 +0000

So what was JC’s best quip then?