Replies

Mr. Robinson is one man, and his time is better spent taking care of his own business.

He does not have time to babysit the bloggers’ forum, and he has delegated that authority, in writing, to humblegunner.

Jim has written several posts stating his wishes about preferred blogger behavior on his site. You have been presented with those posts, but you persist in blowing off Jim’s expressed wishes.

Are you and your minions going to continue to stomp your feet and cry about what Jim Robinson wants on his own site, or will you simply post your original content here and end all this hassle?

But I want to PIMP it! I want HITS!

I WANT them hits! I'll CUT myself! Don't MAKE me!

Since they like to pretend they don't get the point of your analogy, and avoid the point by wordsmithing the analogy, maybe an adaptation like the following will appease them: Jim Rob has himself one big house. He can't be the perfect host and be everywhere all the time - has important host duties, ya know? He allows smoking, but clearly has asked smokers to act gracious whilst smoking.

A guest lights up one cheap-ass cigar. There are guest in the room, sensitive to the stank. They ask the smoker to take it elsewhere. A couple other guests with racid gas encourage the smoker to stay, figuring the rude guest's cloud helps cover their stank. No laws were broken, no one was asked to leave.

First, to Neoavatara and Madd Dawg — you might as well back off. You're going to lose this one.

I've taken the time to read through what Humblegunner is doing and how others are responding. I did that after I ran afoul of Humblegunner and his friends about a month ago, after several years with no problems or objections being raised to my own excerpting, and I ended up as one of their targets.

Over the last month or so I've read thousands of posts in several hundred threads on this “blogpimp police” issue, and I think Humblegunner is correctly describing Jim Robinson's position. However, that was not at all clear to me when I started digging into this.

Part of the problem is that Jim Robinson's comments are buried deeply in obscure threads started long ago, and while Humblegunner does copy them with links, anyone who spends much time on the internet knows that context counts. When post 500-something in a very long thread gets quoted, it's important to read the whole thread and other related threads to be sure there aren't other items somewhere which need to be read in context to understand what the author meant.

The result is that I think there's honest misunderstanding on the part of some people who didn't know there was a problem, combined with others who really **ARE** trying to use Free Republic links as a way to build web traffic and/or improve their Google rankings.

Neoavatara wrote: “At any time, Mr. Robinson or his direct associates can tell us what we can and cannot do. It is ultimately his site, and we only have as much freedom as he is willing to give us. If he states I am wrong, and over the bounds, I will happily accept his ruling. He, not you, is the ultimate determiner of what is acceptable.”

TheOldLady wrote: “Mr. Robinson is one man, and his time is better spent taking care of his own business. He does not have time to babysit the bloggers’ forum, and he has delegated that authority, in writing, to humblegunner.”

Neoavatara and TheOldLady: this gets to the crux of the issue. I've heard this and similar things said repeatedly about Humblegunner’s role. I'm assuming it is true since if it weren't, Jim Robinson would have long ago responded. Can someone show the link indicating that the site owner has delegated this authority in writing to Humblegunner?

If that written delegated authority exists — and I am **NOT** saying it doesn't, in fact I think it probably does exist based on how many times I've heard it said — having a link available may help reduce a lot of problems.

FourPeas wrote: “How is it you’ve been around Free Republic all this time and haven’t yet read about Mr. Robinson’s opinion of blog pimps? It’s quoted and linked to in so many blog pimp threads that it’s certainly no secret.”

I can't agree with this.

Jim Robinson's comments are buried deep in threads that are on topics that not everybody would be interested in reading. And when I mean deep, it's hundreds of posts down in threads that, if I remember correctly, were originally posted sometime in 2010.

It's not at all clear to the casual observer — or even some people who are paying pretty close attention — that Humblegunner speaks with Jim Robinson's authority. For those people who don't happen to click on one of these blog fights and sticks mostly to the news section, it's quite possible not even to be aware of the issue.

To all five of you: I have no authority here at all. Zip, zero, nada. However, I am becoming more and more convinced that this fight is simply unnecessary.

There are people — Neoavatara, Tribune7, and Madd Dawg may or may not be among them — who fully agree that Jim Robinson can do what he wants with his own private property, but don't necessarily believe that Humblegunner speaks for Jim Robinson on this issue.

The result is a lot of yelling back and forth. I think that wastes everybody’s time. There has got to be a better solution.

My own thoughts would be to put the items in dispute in a FAQ with a link on the homepage that clearly answers legitimate questions in advance, and then to clearly designate somebody — Humblegunner or someone else — as the person responsible for enforcing the FAQ.

But again, I have no authority whatsoever and only the owner of the site can decide what he wants to do with his own private property.