Your TAS Dollars at Work

[Rodney]

OK, thanks, Mr. Baggerds. ;)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jerry,

SOLO Passion?

Isn't that Roger's So Low Bashin'?

Or SOLO Tempertantrum?

Or SOLO Tongue-lashin'?

Or SOLO Feeltheluv?

Michael

[Jerry Biggers]

Jerry,

SOLO Passion?

Isn't that Roger's So Low Bashin'?

Or SOLO Tempertantrum?

Or SOLO Tongue-lashin'?

Or SOLO Feeltheluv?

Michael

Michael,

"ALL of the above."

Although the site in question occasionally has interesting content from some of its participants, the effect of Mr. Perigo's apparent out-of-control emotionalism sullies the whole neighborhood. :sick: :poke:

But it's his playpen, he can do what he wants. I just don't think it is wise to invite that type of behavior into a summer institute that is supposed to be devoted to the serious examination of issues from an Objectivist viewpoint.

But, once again, if they gotta have comedy, get PENN & TELLER! It is unlikely that they would start throwing mud pies at their audience.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jerry,

I agree that PENN & TELLER is a class act far above what is presently proposed. But then we are talking about professional standards, not subculture nonentities.

I have been learning some geeky stuff and this has brought a rather funny fact to light. The whole orientation Perigo sets for SOLOP is to fake it and present a false image to the online community. I fully understand, too. If they do not fake an image of importance, how are they ever going to pretend that they can save the world?

But the thirst for the unearned and fooling people is so great that it has spilled over to the geek side. Apparently they are pursuing garbage traffic to get a high Alexa rating. However, they shot themselves in the foot by blowing out their band width. This drastically slowed down their site (see here for an indication that something is wrong).

What this means is that they are trying to increase site "hits," irrespective of where these hits come from. (A "hit" is a browser visiting a site—SOLOP in this case. Technically the visitor's browser sends the URL address to a big honking computer out there somewhere in cyberland called a server and downloads SOLOP's site from that server. There is a lot more to it, but this is how a hit can be measured.)

There are many sources of what is called garbage traffic, which can be bought, come from robot programs, etc. The point is that they are not "hits" by people reading the site (much less interested in Objectivism), but "hits" mostly coming from automated procedures. The idea is usually used to increase visibility in Search Engine Optimization for a variety of commercial reasons. It is a black-hat technique that is a cousin to spam.

In the case of SOLOP, I think the idea is to brag about the traffic the site gets. But for that level of traffic, there is a woeful lack of posts and participation. Those who mess with these numbers will know what I mean (SOLOP's Alexa rating is about 14,500 or so). As a visual, the equivalent would be a local run-down hamburger joint presenting itself as a fast-food multinational corporation with operations in 35 countries.

But the funny part to me is that they are choking on their own garbage traffic (by gumming up their site's performance) and there is not a single tangible benefit other than being able to brag a little. Objectivists certainly don't care.

Michael

EDIT: I goofed on the Alexa number. It is actually somewhere around 260,000, but still high enough to cause a bandwidth clog if not provided for. See post below for more details.

[Chris Grieb]

This is shameless plug for my OL blog but my latest item is on Penn & Teller's show. The show is good and so is the item.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dayaamm!

I forgot to include the last part of my last post. Better late than never:

(batting long eyelashes and smiling coyly):

"KASS me, you fool."

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Most interesting.

I'd noticed, when I was most recently posting on SOLOP, that the site's response to edits on some of my posts was extremely sluggish--sometimes leading to a loss of connection.

Mr. Green couldn't give me stats on SOLOP's traffic going farther back than 4 months. When I asked for data going back to the old SOLOHQ before it started fragmenting, he never answered.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Satguru Swami Perigonanda and Mr. Valliant have gone completely quiet on the "Batten Down the Hatches" thread, where the confrontation took place over the Swami's invite to the TAS Summer Seminar.

On a somewhat older thread initiated by Neil Parille, however, Mr. Valliant has made another jaw-dropping assertion. See

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4008#comment-47133

Of Alan Greenspan's recently published autobiography, Mr. Valliant says:

Greenspan's memoir reports almost nothing negative about Rand. Had this "close friend" felt the desire to "vouch" for any of Ms. B.'s most negative claims, had he felt the desire to defend her in the PARC debate (which I believe he knew about in plenty of time), had he wanted to defend her from ARI or Peikoff, had he personally thought it warranted to report such things about Rand himself, he missed his Golden Opportunity, didn't he?

His memoir contains a Bibliography, a Note on Sources and Acknowledgments. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Brandens appear in none of these, as I recall.

I rather doubt that in his own book Mr. Greenspan thought he needed to say anything about anyone's biography of Rand.

But note Mr. Valliant's presumption that Alan Greenspan knew or cared about Mr. Valliant's opus. I seriously doubt that Greenspan knew, and have no reason to think that he cared.

Is Mr. Valliant mentioned in the Acknowledgments, Note on Sources, or Bibliography?

His insinuations go right along with the "site inflation" being practiced over at the Perigonanda ashram.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Robert, I suggest making one more post on "Batten Down the Hatches": "Test."

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark Hubbard on SOLOP asked me to post his post because he is having some kind of problem:

For Michael Stuart Kelly (OL)

Submitted by Mark Hubbard on Thu, 2008-01-17 03:21.

I have to post this here (again), as, despite having joined OL approximately two weeks ago, I still am not 'authorised' to post to the Your TAS Dollars at Work thread on OL. This in itself is an interesting aspect of the current debate between the two forums, given any poster from OL is free to post in SOLO, yet I am unable to put even an initial post to OL. Note I have tried activating and re-validating my account several times, but to no avail.

Further, whether or not I can post to OL is quite rightly at the discretion of OL's owners, however, now I see this similar disregard for 'freedom to speak' being carried over to a campaign on OL to influence TAS against Linz speaking, this being by the threat to withdraw member funding of that organisation. Again, this withholding of funding is rightly the choice of every individual member of OL, but I would ask those members to think seriously about their premises for doing so, and that they are not in fact being led by minds which are blackened by personal vendettas, rather than a thirst for ideas through passionate, reasoned, debate. TAS has quite rightly picked that Linz's speeches will draw crowds, and will spark debate; these two threads themselves witness that fact - why is OL's membership so scared of such debate?

At the risk of incurring Godwit's condemnation, there is a feeling of fascism in this whole OL thread crusade: a movement which is anti-idea, anti-freedom, and certainly irrational.

Worse, albeit deviating from the above topic.

Robert Campbell posts on SOLO (note, he's allowed to post here) that Linz, et al, are plotting to take over TAS, which they have refuted laughingly (I mean, really?). But now to add the 'in' to 'credulity', I find your following post this morning, Michael, in which you refer to what was only an incidental thread of my own on SOLO:

Apparently they are pursuing garbage traffic to get a high Alexa rating. However, they shot themselves in the foot by blowing out their band width. This drastically slowed down their site (see here for an indication that something is wrong).

What this means is that they are trying to increase site "hits," irrespective of where these hits come from. (A "hit" is a browser visiting a site-SOLOP in this case. Technically the visitor's browser sends the URL address to a big honking computer out there somewhere in cyberland called a server and downloads SOLOP's site from that server. There is a lot more to it, but this is how a hit can be measured.)

There are many sources of what is called garbage traffic, which can be bought, come from robot programs, etc. The point is that they are not "hits" by people reading the site (much less interested in Objectivism), but "hits" mostly coming from automated procedures. The idea is usually used to increase visibility in Search Engine Optimization for a variety of commercial reasons. It is a black-hat technique that is a cousin to spam.

In the case of SOLOP, I think the idea is to brag about the traffic the site gets. But for that level of traffic, there is a woeful lack of posts and participation. Those who mess with these numbers will know what I mean (SOLOP's Alexa rating is about 14,500 or so). As a visual, the equivalent would be a local run-down hamburger joint presenting itself as a fast-food multinational corporation with operations in 35 countries.

But the funny part to me is that they are choking on their own garbage traffic (by gumming up their site's performance) and there is not a single tangible benefit other than being able to brag a little.

Let me see if I've got this right. You seriously believe that the owners of SOLO are concerned with manipulating Internet traffic as part of a program, (to follow on from Campbell's assertions), of world domination or some such? Might I suggest this is nonsensical, at best, quite seriously deluded, at worst. Speaking for myself, I find SOLO simply to be a good meeting place for a diverse range of people who have some aspect of Objectivism in common (for and against), and I suspect you will find that is why almost all forum members are there. As someone earlier in your thread said, there are a lot of very interesting threads on SOLO. SOLO's techie, William, saw to the issues I was having in the thread I started, and I would also suggest, being busy in his own right, does very well keeping the site going: the thought he is spending his time trying to do as you say is, to use a word that is always on my mind in this post, laughable.

As a final barb, the extent to which many of the posters on OL are detaching themselves from the facts of reality to perform character assassinations (Jonathan), and to extract such ludicrous, childish, conspiracy theories and the like above, troubles me, and should trouble the rational posters to the OL site, given that such fantastic postings, on that thread, at least, are never taken to task. Perhaps it's time to re-examine some of your premises. In the meantime, if some of your members want passionate debate across a wide spectrum of topics, where absurdities will most always be taken to task, as they should, then I would suggest they start reading SOLO's lively boards. At least they will always be given the respect of an initial post.

Mmmm. unless I need to examine my own premises: Linz, are we on the righteous path of global domination? And is the plan to do this somehow mystically by Internet page hits? If so, I think we need a 'little' discussion on strategy. William, that plate they put in your head 'after the crash' (yeah right) ... Jesus, I've just clicked, the bionic superman in the machine scenario; excellent. Nothing can stop SOLO now!

Perhaps Michael you would be so kind as to upload this post to the thread in OL, given that I, for whatever reason, cannot.

Mark,

I presume you are going to read this. I don't have your email, so I will discuss account matters with some other comments here.

1. On the Alexa ratings, I goofed. Sometimes I use a proxy for surfing and the Alexa rating was for the proxy, not for the site going through it. The SOLOP Alexa rating directly from my browser actually is about 264,000 (+-) (as one poster just mentioned), which is still way too high for the level of activity on that board and is still indicative of garbage traffic. At least it is not as ridiculous looking as 14,500. (This explains why the garbage traffic was causing indigestion, not outright choking—meaning site crashes.) Sorry for the oversight. My general suggestion (for anyone at all) is to abandon pursuing garbage traffic. It is called that because it is that.

2. You are more than welcome to join OL and whatever the problems are, they are not anything hands-on. There has been some kind of glitch somewhere. (I will expect you to look at and observe the posting guidelines, however. See here and here. Please be advised that OL posting guidelines are not the same as SOLOP posting guidelines. But they apply equally to everyone on OL.)

3. Frankly, I have read some of your posts and I find you to be a sincere person of goodwill. Should this attitude persist (if you start posting here), I will be more than glad to point you to why I have serious problems with Perigo. And I will be glad to illustrate everything with words and deeds from the horse's mouth that you can check independently. I hold facts as the ultimate arbitrator.

On the normative side, I have nothing but contempt for that man and it is a considered appraisal based on ethical principles, not the tribal "us against them" attitude of his world. It is based on looking at his words and deeds dispassionately (including personal upclose examination). I would have contempt for him regardless of Objectivism, forum life, or anything else. I have met people like that along my life in many fields and contexts. Big frogs in little ponds is a pretty good start of a description, although that does not even begin to include the sheer malice and emotional imbalance I have observed. I still kick myself for previously allowing myself to fooled about what I was seeing with my own eyes.

But maybe that was a good thing. I certainly can understand how others can be seduced by the bursts of spontaneity, cool-sounding jargon, pseudo-celebrity charisma, popping out with an intelligent comment or two when cornered, etc., and most of all, the emotional appeal to protect him when he starts crying "victim" and "poor little me!"

I think you will end up noticing over time that OL members who hold a similar contempt for Perigo have arrived at that evaluation under their own steam. They certainly do not need me or anyone else to tell them what to think. Once in a while a post will pop up trying to play the "us against them" card, but it is usually ignored. The environment here encourages everyone to think for himself.

If you are interested in selling Perigo here, good luck. You will have to do it one-by-one with highly intelligent, extremely independent-minded people. I do not envy you that mission (should it be so).

4. I am interested in resolving whatever technical issue that has been the problem with your account. (Frankly I am having a small issue myself with receiving archived OL private messages, so I will be bothering customer support anyway.) Here is my email:

mikellyusabr@yahoo.com

I am going to suggest a small procedure and please feel free to contact me if there is any problem. I will manually override any trouble that may occur if I am made aware of it and can do that.

5. I could not find your name in the member roster. Usually, when a poster is not included in the member roster, this is because a validation email was sent to him and he did not respond. Often, these validation emails end up in the sender's "spam" or "bulk" folders. If the sender never checks these folders, he could have received the validation email and not even been aware of it. Email programs periodically automatically delete the contents of these folders.

But rather than continuing to speculate on what happened, the present fact is that you are not in the member roster. So I suggest you sign up once again. Once you have done that, if you wish, you can send me what was done and how so I can follow it hands-on to make sure it completes.

Sorry for the inconvenience. This is not our intent.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Mark,

As soon as the techno-glitches are dealt with, I'll be happy to discuss with you what I think Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant are up to. What I put forward is a hypothesis, and obviously speculation is involved, but it isn't that difficult to explain what makes the speculation plausible.

The same, of course, goes for any of the other issues I raised over on SOLOPassion recently. Most of them elicited no response at all over there.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

The mention of Alexa ratings has temporarily revived activity on the "Batten Down the Hatches" thread at SOLOP.

Over there, Mr. Erp complained about ads for ObjectivistLiving showing up on Myspace.

Some days, I open my browser and find ads for Noodlefood at the bottom of the home page here. I'm seeing one this morning.

Internet ad placement is not an exact science...

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

People should learn about Google Adsense and Adwords before they complain. I am really amused about the complaints they have regarding one of the only true forms of unregulated capitalism operating on the market nowadays.

We sometimes put out Adwords advertising, but only very little. I am not going to do their homework for them, though. Let them learn what this is.

The Objectivist subculture really is a closed-off alienated little thing at times, isn't it? No wonder people constantly call it a cult.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

I want to add to that last post. The idea behind techy stuff like traffic measurement should be to increase performance and sales. That's where it all came from. But sometimes the techy people start using the resources as ends in themselves and forget the basics. Some of the more underhanded tech-support people certainly try to bluff with statistics.

But there is one law that governs all with online business: relevance. This is where Google is master.

(OK, you can make money with irrevalent shotgun approaches like spam, but they are never long-lasting. Only policies based on relevance make it big time and for the long haul.)

The best way I learned to think about relevance was illustrated in an article I read on marketing. The guy (I can't remember who right now) said he had a foolproof parameter that would allow him to beat anyone on sales any day of the week. He gave the example of a hamburger joint. Of the paramaters, he would allow the competitor to have:

- The best location,

- The best decoration,

- The best beef,

- The best recipes,

- The best prices,

- The cleanest joint,

- The highest traffic flow,

- The best customer service,

- Practically, the best everything.

The only parameter he wanted above his competitor was:

- A bunch of hungry people.

That about sums up the idea of relevance.

This principle works with intellectual forums, also. What is more important to look at statistics-wise: site hits or the number and quality of people posting?

Without a bunch of people hungry for ideas, all the rest is BS. This is why I chided SOLOP for garbage traffic (which even 260,000 +- shows quite well).

I am very happy with OL's Alexa standing right now. Kat and I get no money from this site (other than sporadic donations) and I do no SEO work (other than sporadic Adwords with a very low spending ceiling), so a higher traffic level to me would be quality traffic with many more people interacting, i.e., a drain on my time without money.

This is why my focus has been on member quality and not quantity.

I do have plans for high volume in the future (including plans for making money, and not just for me, either, but for OL regulars at times), but too much quality traffic right now would delay those plans. There is still a lot of work to do. But the foundation is looking awfully good.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

I thought the Noodlefood ads were some sort of sick joke.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I thought the Noodlefood ads were some sort of sick joke.

Chris,

No.

Hsieh is one of the few Objectivists I have seen who is actually using Web 2.0 stuff (although Adwords is not Web 2.0, but merely a web tool). She ain't great at it, but from what I have seen, the proper pieces are in place.

(btw - I have yet to turn the start switch on what I am preparing.)

The ads you see are placed on sites randomly by Google according to what is called "keywords." You pay for the keywords you use (ranked according to some pretty complicated algorithms) and, unless you specify certain parameters, you have no control over which sites your ads go on.

I think using classified ads like this was a genius-level concept they came up with at Google.

As to Hsieh, I begrudge her the smear campaigns she has promoted, not her use of Internet tools.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

The Objectivist subculture really is a closed-off alienated little thing at times, isn't it? No wonder people constantly call it a cult.

Michael

"You're on your way into hell, Howard."

[william.scherk]

Apparently they [at SOLO] are pursuing garbage traffic to get a high Alexa rating. However, they shot themselves in the foot by blowing out their band width.

Michael, you write that "they" are apparently pursuing garbage traffic. How would I know if they are or are not pursuing garbage traffic?

As I understand the matter of 'hits,' only logs of traffic show the details of site visits. And full site statistics logs are not shared publicly by most webmasters, though they may give a sample as William Green has done. Depending on the type of software that does the recording of hits, spider activity (from Google, Yahoo, etc) may be included.

I think SOLO webmaster William Green is a sober and careful person; I don't believe that he is one of the "they" you note, but I would be interested in any evidence you have to back up your speculation.

[Chris Grieb]

I thought the Noodlefood ads were some sort of sick joke.

Chris,

No.

Hsieh is one of the few Objectivists I have seen who is actually using Web 2.0 stuff (although Adwords is not Web 2.0, but merely a web tool). She ain't great at it, but from what I have seen, the proper pieces are in place.

(btw - I have yet to turn the start switch on what I am preparing.)

The ads you see are placed on sites randomly by Google according to what is called "keywords." You pay for the keywords you use (ranked according to some pretty complicated algorithms) and, unless you specify certain parameters, you have no control over which sites your ads go on.

I think using classified ads like this was a genius-level concept they came up with at Google.

As to Hsieh, I begrudge her the smear campaigns she has promoted, not her use of Internet tools.

Michael

Michael; Is there a chance that Hsieh will have to pay some money that OL will end up getting. If it is GO FOR IT BABY!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... I would be interested in any evidence you have to back up your speculation.

William,

Let me be clear. It is speculation.

I think it is good speculation, though. When you see a site with a dozen or so active posters (and another dozen or so sporadic ones) and relatively low number of posts getting a medium-high traffic rating, those are grounds to speculate.

We all get spidered. There is only one way for one place to get crawled more than other similar places (and I am not saying they do get crawled more, since I do not know where the traffic is coming from): if they seek it. Crawlers are pretty uniform in their standards if no one optimizes for them.

I find it inconceivable for medium-high volume traffic to be a read-only audience of people actually interested in the antics of that polemical site (without hardly anyone wanting to chime in), but I suppose this is within the realm of possibility. I find the speculation of garbage traffic far more believable.

Also, back when I communicated with Perigo, I know for a fact he works the emails hard. I doubt he knows enough about this to make a difference, though. But I know from experience it is easy to emulate his habits if you have close contact with him. About Green, I have no opinion other than calling his occassional silly potshots at OL, er... silly. When I said "they," I had no specific person in mind.

There is another possibility. Much of the garbage traffic could be due to improper spambot filters. But I hardly ever see ads on SOLOP for porn, mortgages, casinos, penis extension, etc., posted. So I presume their filters are effective.

But as I said, all this is speculation. Blame me, not the stats.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael; Is there a chance that Hsieh will have to pay some money that OL will end up getting. If it is GO FOR IT BABY!

Chris,

LOL...

From what I have learned, I can't think of such a scenario, but it is pleasant to contemplate the possibility...

Michael

EDIT: Actually I did overlook something. (I used to be good. Something's happening...) The way Adwords and Adsense works is that you pay for Adwords but you get paid for hosting the ads and this is called Adsense. Obviously, you pay much on one end and you receive little on the other. So if Hsieh's ad does come up within the little section on OL where Google ads are presented and someone clicks on that ad, she will pay much and OL will receive a few pennies. This goes for any ad, including others that might be from hostile people/organizations (but friendly ones as well). Just thought I would mention that, but for the record, I am not suggesting this be done. In fact, it should not be. It is black hat stuff.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

Most interesting.

I'd noticed, when I was most recently posting on SOLOP, that the site's response to edits on some of my posts was extremely sluggish--sometimes leading to a loss of connection.

I noticed, the last couple days (Sunday and Monday) when I checked SOLO, that accessing threads was sluggish. Maybe the explanation for their having gotten clogged for a time is that, for once, a lot of people -- people who have mainly quit bothering to look at it -- were reading the site. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Kat]

I can block the Noodlefood ads from our site if they are offensive to people.

Kat

[Chris Grieb]

Kat; I must say the idea of Hsieh having to write a check to OL makes want to do something that I can't talk about on OL. I guess the biggest problem I have is someone new going to her site and becoming uninterested in Objectivism as a result.

Edited January 18, 2008 by Chris Grieb