Cheers and Jeers Followup
I give credit to Bill in Portland Maine. Unlike others, Bill has the integrity to discuss criticisms from the Free Speech Zone as well as address my brief diary a couple of days ago where I mentioned Cheers and Jeers. I am going to ask of Bill to look carefully at Susan's post and ask him if he would like to address that. (I had nothing to do with any comments in that thread including hers)
Bill, I stated a few days ago, I'll state again that I think you have a good column. I'll further state that you have every right to decide the terms of your column. If you like the idea of volunteers, great. What many are pointing out is that your column is probably the most read column on the site. It generates money, probably far more than $33,000 a year in blogads and subscriptions for Markos. Moulitsas made over a million dollars last year, some of it off your labor. What people are suggesting is that perhaps you get fairly compensated for it. Notwithstanding such, it's your call. When I spent about 24 hours going all over the Internet with a variety of names framing Sarah Palin so that it would appear that my narrative was taking hold over the "Hockey mom, she sold it on Ebay, maverick" narrative, I did it for free. When I shot video of Randall Terry basically threatening Obama's live and Thelma Drake staffers calling for Obama to be tortured in Gitmo (Drake lost in a shocking upset) I did it for free. So I understand if you do your column for free.
The issues raised in that thread include some ridiculous attacks but also some legitimate points of concerns. Some of the criticism is unfair to you.
My question to you is, "Have you read UGOG?" We know the administrators have. They are aware of it. They let it slide. And the claim that what happens at other sites is bogus. What happens at the "other site" is basically a confessional of what they are doing at DailyKos. However Kos decided to let them know it was okay. Is it okay Bill?
Is it okay to coordinate kill shots, advocate sodomizing DailyKos users, investigating thousands of people's real life identities merely because they post at Daily Kos or this comment by trashablanca about a 14 year old?
Trashablanca is of the opinion that (USER 14 Year old KID) is a douchebag in training. trashablanca would like to insult the little prick and make said prick cry. trashablanca should feel ashamed of this un-PC thoughts, but he isn't in the least.
I'll spare you 463 pages of reading. Take a look here exclusively at some of the comments made by MajorFlaw and others at the site.
http://davefromqueens.com/2009/01/10/majorflaw-michael-fingerit-files-reposted.aspx Scroll down about half way to get past my commentary and focus simply on their comments.
When I wrote my final diary, I wrote it because I was so angered by things I saw that I felt morally compelled to leave the site. I could have stayed and still been there today as davefromqueens, I know how to play the game there. I made some very serious allegations which at the time seemed crazy to some. Now that I've been vindicated and proven to be exactly right on every single allegation I made, even though I knew I was right when I was making it, does anybody want to give credit where credit is due?
Certainly under these circumstances you can understand why I might be really pissed. I didn't post at DailyKos to have people go investigate my real life and bring my family into in. Other people didn't post at DailyKos to have their children threatened or threats to their jobs.
What some at FSZ were bringing to your attention is that the people who are doing these horrible things are using your article as their safe haven to accumulate the mojo needed to retain their TU status. They want to know what you think of these things.
You say you are a standup guy and I have no reason to doubt you. I'd like to see a response. If you have guts, why not criticize ugog directly at Dailykos and ask that this small group be banned? Furthermore, if you have questions or criticisms of me, and by no means am I blameless, you can fire away.
Bill, I stated a few days ago, I'll state again that I think you have a good column. I'll further state that you have every right to decide the terms of your column. If you like the idea of volunteers, great. What many are pointing out is that your column is probably the most read column on the site. It generates money, probably far more than $33,000 a year in blogads and subscriptions for Markos. Moulitsas made over a million dollars last year, some of it off your labor. What people are suggesting is that perhaps you get fairly compensated for it. Notwithstanding such, it's your call. When I spent about 24 hours going all over the Internet with a variety of names framing Sarah Palin so that it would appear that my narrative was taking hold over the "Hockey mom, she sold it on Ebay, maverick" narrative, I did it for free. When I shot video of Randall Terry basically threatening Obama's live and Thelma Drake staffers calling for Obama to be tortured in Gitmo (Drake lost in a shocking upset) I did it for free. So I understand if you do your column for free.
The issues raised in that thread include some ridiculous attacks but also some legitimate points of concerns. Some of the criticism is unfair to you.
My question to you is, "Have you read UGOG?" We know the administrators have. They are aware of it. They let it slide. And the claim that what happens at other sites is bogus. What happens at the "other site" is basically a confessional of what they are doing at DailyKos. However Kos decided to let them know it was okay. Is it okay Bill?
Is it okay to coordinate kill shots, advocate sodomizing DailyKos users, investigating thousands of people's real life identities merely because they post at Daily Kos or this comment by trashablanca about a 14 year old?
Trashablanca is of the opinion that (USER 14 Year old KID) is a douchebag in training. trashablanca would like to insult the little prick and make said prick cry. trashablanca should feel ashamed of this un-PC thoughts, but he isn't in the least.
I'll spare you 463 pages of reading. Take a look here exclusively at some of the comments made by MajorFlaw and others at the site.
http://davefromqueens.com/2009/01/10/majorflaw-michael-fingerit-files-reposted.aspx Scroll down about half way to get past my commentary and focus simply on their comments.
When I wrote my final diary, I wrote it because I was so angered by things I saw that I felt morally compelled to leave the site. I could have stayed and still been there today as davefromqueens, I know how to play the game there. I made some very serious allegations which at the time seemed crazy to some. Now that I've been vindicated and proven to be exactly right on every single allegation I made, even though I knew I was right when I was making it, does anybody want to give credit where credit is due?
Certainly under these circumstances you can understand why I might be really pissed. I didn't post at DailyKos to have people go investigate my real life and bring my family into in. Other people didn't post at DailyKos to have their children threatened or threats to their jobs.
What some at FSZ were bringing to your attention is that the people who are doing these horrible things are using your article as their safe haven to accumulate the mojo needed to retain their TU status. They want to know what you think of these things.
You say you are a standup guy and I have no reason to doubt you. I'd like to see a response. If you have guts, why not criticize ugog directly at Dailykos and ask that this small group be banned? Furthermore, if you have questions or criticisms of me, and by no means am I blameless, you can fire away.
Actually Bill was laid off from his well paying job last year. Kos appealed to dkossers to make up the difference for Bill by pledging money each month to keep Cheers and Jeers going. (It's called using other people's money for your benefit.) I sent a monthly amount via paypal to be deducted from my bank account each month. When majorflaw and his vigilantes had me banned I stopped my payment and I suspect others did too. So majorflaw and all the rest have cost Bill a significant loss of income.
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Kos once said, "Daily Kos is a product not a soapbox." It's one of the few times he opened up his mouth and his lips weren't lying.
The product makes money each time the meta wars and flame wars constitute a new page view. The abuse and bullying is like a soap opera and it attracts the most page hits.
with Bill I respect his right to make the choice he's made. The issue here is Markos. If Bill is making money for your site and C and J is your most read feature, why not compensate him accordingly? Oh, he can't do that, let others pay for it.
Kos is a businessman. He couldn't give a flying f*ck about health care, education, the military, etc... This is about money. His rich family enabled him to invest in a product. He was first to the design and software programming (which whether luck or innovation, it is what it is) and thus in position to make a ton of money. Because of that he's light years ahead of the blogosphere technology wise.
If he wasn't such an a**hole, his site would have had 10,000 diaries a day and 50,000 Democratic activists all congregating there on a weekly basis. Instead, you get about 300 diarists and 5000 active users. And those numbers keep declining.
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