Something for Nothing
Not too long ago I had to deal with a somewhat-new e[lust] participant who seemed to be “innocently” doing his best to just barely follow the posted rules of e[lust]. When I first created the list of participation rules, I didn’t go into exact detail about what constitutes a proper re-posting of the digest and what does not. I, naively, thought that it was obvious and that people wouldn’t be assholes about it.
I was wrong.
This past weekend I had to email participants of the digests the afore-mentioned person was included in and let them know that they can/should remove his links. Why? Because he decided that he didn’t give a shit about everybody else; he didn’t like the way e[lust] posts made his blog look (give me a minute to stop laughing at that) and when I told him that he had to follow the rules and re-publish the editions in a certain way (the way everybody else does) he quietly appeared to agree. He posted it correctly.
Until, he didn’t. It occured to me to check up on him after a couple of weeks. I guess I wasn’t all that surprised to find that he had pulled the most recent edition (#19). I was surprised to see he went back and pulled the other edition (#16).
e[lust] is my baby. It’s my big project. To diss it is to diss me. To have no respect for it is to have no respect for me AND for all your peers who participate. Think about it. Everybody else follows the rules and re-posts it….what makes you a special snowflake? It irks me when people don’t re-post it and I have to harass them. But it infuriates me when someone does this – purposely thumbs their nose at the rules, at me, and at everybody else in the blogging community by pulling the posts from their site.
This means that their links are being published on 50-some other sites, and they are not reciprocating. 50-some other blogs of varying Pagerank and popularity are giving this guy “Google juice” and he does not deserve it. Sure, one of the editions I removed him from is a few months old. The chances of someone clicking on his link from a post on your blog from 3 months ago? Not going to happen much. But the links are there and are helping him out.
He doesn’t deserve our help.
I’m pretty fuckin offended and I think you should be, too.
People who think they are better than everyone else…..people who join in community projects and think they’re above doing their equal part and giving back….I have no respect for them. Selfish hypocrisy gets to me. There’s a few bloggers now that I used to like/respect and now I cannot tolerate. Common decency and a little respect for your peers is such a small thing to do, it baffles me that some can’t be bothered.
I can’t imagine doing that. That’s just so much effort to remove something so tiny. It’s just one blog post on this guy’s blog – why is it such a big deal?
~ He said that the elust posts made his site “look like everyone else’s” because the post would be the same post as on elust. And he doesn’t post frequently. But to see his site, that comment by him is laughable.
So, I realized that could have come across as criticizing you. :) I wasn’t. I was criticizing the guy that put so much effort into avoiding the rules. :)
Actually the chances aren’t THAT small. If your like me and use E lust to read other sex blogs I don’t regulary read, double up on reviews if I’m considering a particular product I will periodically go through the back editions and link surf so I’m glad you removed his link
So the douche waffle isn’t getting my traffic!
I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this either! It’s a great way to find new bloggers or just chew through time.
~ Well yes, if you’re reading the posts on the e[lust] site…..but if you’re on someone else’s blog, someone who posts nearly every day, edition #16 is going to be pretty buried. Glad to hear you’ve found it so useful though, yay!! :)
That’s just… sad. Why do people need to be so uptight? (Alright, alright, so I’ve been uptight on more than a few occasions myself, but come on.)
If you’re going to participate, just follow the rules. Don’t try to bend them to suit your own interests.
~Soren
With all the effort you put into it, you don’t have to put up with idiots.
He won’t get something for nothing from me! As I already told you, but am happy to share here, I went back and removed the link to his post, even if chances are slim that it’ll effect his traffic at all.
Fuck him.
And you rock!
Some people just want to be contrary. They’re also attention whores – good, bad – they don’t care. If he can’t follow the rules then he doesn’t deserve to participate. Period.
Understand completely. I’ve removed the links.
Many thanks for everything – my experience with eLust is all great.
Max