[Rezwan]

Aeronaut wrote: I’d set the program to nofollow ALL HTML links, across the board, except for the official links that need the ‘follow’ attribute. If a link really is pertinent in the thread, it can be copied and pasted into the address bar almost by reflex.

Yeah, but I like being able to just click on a link. People should not abuse the site. I think it’s best to vet the members rather than limit them once they join.

You may or may not also want to call the promoter out over at Warrior Forum and announce the new linking policy.

Yes, I’m on this. My communication thread as follows:

Warrior forum said:

Hello,

we have no list we sell to marketers. Please contact the owner of the list.

Thomas

I replied back to the guy that tipped us off. He said:

The following is taken directly from the pdf they sell….

Please note: If you have obtained this packet from anyone other than me, Paul
xxxxxx, or my website (www dot pjsxxxxxxxxxbacklinks.com) or the Warrior Forum, you have
received a stolen copy. Anyone who violates the copyright on my product will be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law. To report any abuse, please contact me here:
http:/xxxxxxxt

and a link to his partner in crime http://axxxxxxxxx link_builder1.html

This should be all of the information you need.

(Yes, I’m obscuring the links to keep people from going to them, of course. A lot of x’s.

So I told Paul to take our name off the list. He said:

Yes, what is the name of your website? Sorry for the inconvenience.

Asked how we got on the site, he said:

I have removed you off my list, and I’m trying to get the pirated copies of my list taken off the web. I hired a seo outsourcing person to find links for me, that’s how I got your website

And I’m putting this info out here to get the anatomy of this sort of thing.

Also, Warrior F was in denial of this, though Paul says that is the place you would get it. Unscrupulous site.

[Rezwan]

Now – what human looks at other people’s membership profiles? Not enough to get any real attention, I’d think.

Robots might scan them and tally them.

My point here is that – this sounds like a numbers game played by robots. Where’s the humanity? And why are humans then even paying attention to all this number padding?

More worrisome, is this the game we’re supposed to be playing to increase our ranking and visibility in cyberspace? Is this what SEO is all about? Robots tallying links that humans don’t really pay attention to?

The validity of statistical analysis is called into question here.

[Rezwan]

Ah. One of our new wave of sign ons has this to say:

Sorry for the inconvenience – we’ve been flooded with some bogus membership
applications and are trying to clean it up!

Yes,, I would imagine you are being flooded.

Not sure if you are aware of this or not but your site has been added to an internet marketers list being sold by ht2p warriorforum dot com [whoops! Almost rewarded them with a live link there!] which essentially means that people are spamming your site in order to get a backlink to their own websites.

How does this work? Part of the google algorithm for how it ranks a website is based on backlinks, links from your site to another. In your members profiles you allow links to be added. This is how your site is being abused and why you have a large number of bogus memberships. They sign up for a membership and then add spam links in the profile.

I’d advise that you go through all of your recent memberships and take a close look at each profile… and sometimes the links can be in places that you’d least expect. Clever little trick, some profiles don’t allow links or they “nofollow” them in order to avoid the problems you are currently having, but, whoever designed the page overlooked the fact that you can add html code directly into certain fields like ‘nickname’ so the nickname in the profile is the link but nobody would ever think to check that.

good luck, and yes, what you are doing is truly badass and it’s unfortunate that your industry doesn’t have the same influence that the oil industry has. With the proper resources and financing the world could be a much better and cleaner place.

Now, lets think about this. Everyone’s out there, trying to get a linkback to their sites. Desperate for attention. As are we, of course. We’re all in this boat. So…they’re signing up for a membership account to pepper with links. Now – what human looks at other people’s membership profiles? Not enough to get any real attention, I’d think.

Robots might scan them and tally them.

How effective is this strategy?

I certainly want our legitimate members to be able to share things (links) about themselves to their hearts content. I don’t want to install a freeze on linkbacks from our forum.

So…I guess we’ll just make membership more rigorous.

[Rezwan]

Alex Pollard wrote: Folks, it is very easy to create a new thread rather than go way off-topic.

Thanks Alex!

[Rezwan]

That’s right. More details at this post.

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: Along the same lines the specified distance between repeaters on early EtherNet cables was set to the standard distance between urban drain covers (in which the early lines between University buildings were laid). Makes you wonder were Big Al was when he invented this stuff. :smirk:

Since it seems to be such a hot topic, I’ve assigned Al Gore his own discussion section (Al Gore Fan Club). Post about Al over there, and please try to keep such discussions out of your other posts.

Thanks!

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: Dash is such a concise word 🙄

😆 I concur

I am currently reading a book, “The Future of the Internet” by Zittrain. Great book! Relevant to anyone who uses the internet. Relevant to people in countries where the internet is being used to crack down on dissenters. And at its heart, relevant to this endeavor.

A basic theme of the book is “generativity” vs. lockdown. The net is generative because it enables anyone to do pretty much anything, create anything, modify anything, in unexpected ways. And to collaborate and create, also unexpectedly. But this same generativity makes it possible for anyone to create harmful things. Spam, spyware, destroying other people’s reputations, files, finances, launching nuclear missiles – what have you. We’ve been living blissfully so far, enjoying the generativity, and suffering the increasing problems without doing much (like, instead of solving the spam problem, we just increase bandwidth. Many computers are sending 90% spam, unawares. When they get slow – more juice.) We’re just putting up with the nuisances.

The very success of internet is what’s causing the problems, and before you know it, we’ll have a cyber “pearl harbor”, or the attrition occuring now will have the same result – as it is already having – of people locking down. Shifting away from this generative realm, limiting themselves, in many interesting ways I hadn’t considered until reading the book. (e.g., giving power over to others to make decisions for us, basically. Like Tivo is able to file a suit and make another company retroactively withdraw content from your computer with an update, and so forth.) (think I used “e.g.” correctly there).

OK, I’m only halfway through this book, but it’s ringing a bell. Lerner’s book was, in part, about the tension between empirical and deductive reasoning. This internet book is getting me to see the interplay of generativity vs. lockdown as another operating force in the field of knowledge and information, religion and science.

There’s a parallell here, I feel. Maybe a bit of a stretch. Like the religious folk want to stop religious tinkering – have a final truth and shore it up, because when you allow tinkering, all kinds of harmful things enter the realm, and then just anybody can spew anything. Best shut it down and control entry. To a lesser extent (but nonetheless similar) science. You start letting people tinker too much, and you’ll be up to your ears in paranormal psychometrics or whatever. So you err on the side of control. Shut them out. Make barrier to entry very stiff. Fair enough – or not. As with the internet or with religions, the barrier can easily become proprietary and subjective. It’s a slippery slope. Objectivity is not a strong human tendency.

These things have a trend cycle, though. The burden of challenge is just high, but not completely blocked like it is with some religions. It’s playing itself out. It’ll take time.

Well, maybe not that much time if we had search engine optimization! Yes! My bad. I’ll get on that. Soon. I swear! “We have not yet begun to fight!”

But at some point, you’re going to have to relax and get comfortable with the uncertainty thing. It’s not so hard. You may even find it liberating.

[Rezwan]

I was moved to express my frustration at faith based initiatives and attempts to get people to accept results of, say, elections.

I guess my point, expressed with a tinge of sarcasm, was that large swathes of the population don’t operate along rational, systematic, enlightened lines. This seems especially true of people in positions of power. They have more to lose.

Some memes are strong and hard to dislodge.

Were you hoping for specific, causal factors in response to your post?

[Rezwan]

Also, perhaps the fusion forums is not the place to discuss this. Feel free to join the planiran forums and continue there – http://www.planiran.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/116

Or not. You’re all free.

Yay!

[Rezwan]

Trying to show hardliners here that free speech is…well, even though it’s very annoying (let’s be honest) – its worth it in terms of creating a generative society that can, paradoxically handle major threats.

Glenn! Actually have a question for you. I only read “All the Shah’s Men”. And having read that, I was surprised at how little it took to effect a coup. It seems that Iranians were in such awe and fear of America, and the legend of the CIA, that they were very easily manipulated. Just a few people showing up in the streets, having been paid to go there and shout certain things, effected panic. The actions taken were quite minimal. And now, naturally, every little thing is a major threat.

So, my argument is that a society with more robust press and speech would not succumb to this because a bunch of people shouting on the streets would just be another bunch of whiners. In the US, the arguments are plentiful, the opinions widely ranging, and they often shrilly cancel each other out and trivialize each other.

Unfortunately, the Mossadeq coup is not studied here. “Everyone knows” the CIA pulled a coup, but the only thing they’ve learned from it is to fear public protests, label them CIA backed, and clamp down on them. So, a lot of hostility and regret, but no constructive lessons learned, or policies developed.

So, you’ve read that other book. And others besides. What I’m trying to get at is, what was the actual mechanism by which the CIA effected it’s mischief in other places, and could better intra-national communication institutions and free speech institutions in those countries have prevented that (rather than served it, as they suggest)? I suppose not, if we’re dealing with power hungry, petty dictator wannabes. But that brings the flaw back home. It’s your own rulers that betray you, not the foreign powers. They succumb to temptation.

Do you see the case I’m trying to build?

Personally, I think it would be more empowering for Iranians to blame themselves for the Mossadeq mess, to say the CIA is incompetent and just trying to take credit for our own local power hungry people that used them for their own gain. I don’t know why most Iranians prefer the CIA conspiracy theory and the role of victim. And I honestly don’t know what the truth is. Maybe Mossadeq was incompetent and in over his head with the leading of Iran, and actually relieved for the uprising. And I wish we had a more robustly open society that debated these things. The level of argument her is really limited/stifled. What a shame.

More speech, not less. More topics, not less. More disagreement, not less. Hours of fun.

[Rezwan]

Hi Duke, I hear you. See how difficult this free speech thing is, even in the land of the free? How in order to have a free society, you end up suffering a lot of opinions that seem counterproductive and downright annoying? That seem to take up a lot of time and go nowhere? I’m reading this cool book right now: The Future of the Internet (And how to stop it) Talks about this phenomenon in terms of the tradeoff between generativity and mischief (virusus, spam, spyware, etc.)

These issues are everywhere. I think it comes down to what Rose Wilder Lane said – that the driving force for people is to control the energy of other people, by controlling their beliefs. We all have that urge. Hence the tendency to get shrill and act like our view is the only right one, or what not. Takes a lot of discipline to keep a conversation constructive. But also, every now and then you have to realize you may be wrong. Perhaps Reagan IS a prophet. “Well…”

Duke Leto wrote: If you are, as you say, under scrutiny for having been educated in the US, for god’s sake stop posting in this thread! I feel bad enough for having exposed you to closer scrutiny by sounding you out while you are in Iran.

Oh, too late for that. Cats out of the bag. I have that other website, and I twitter. The issue here is that the government has been equating opposing views with foreign regime change plots. I’m just trying to clarify that that’s not what I’m about. Public forums are just the place to do that.

No. I’m not about regime change and superimposing western style government here, establishing a new puppet. Rather, I’m all about organic, home grown transformation, free speech and generativity, unique to this locale. But that’s quite a hard sell here. And so many of the habits of free speech have not been developed here. We don’t have a lot of experience with it. And as you see from your own post, quite often people get fed up with other people’s blather and the impulse to just shut up/dismiss/ridicule disagreeing voices is always there.

So, what’s needed here is more acts of speech, rather than less. I’m trying to actively shift perspectives here. Trying to get Americans to see their role in the stifling of free speech in the middle east. Trying to show hardliners here that free speech is…well, even though it’s very annoying (let’s be honest) – its worth it in terms of creating a generative society that can, paradoxically handle major threats.

Yes, that’s a cowardly utilitarian argument. But it needs to be made, and seems to be the thing to do right now.

Anyway, my thoughts on this are still cooking.

[Rezwan]

And I’m still not convinced that Religion is just a pretext in many cases. Or ideology. There’s this “uber alles” thing going on with people. I’m not sure people are that rational. There’s an imp in the works.

[Rezwan]

Thanks, Glenn. That’s about the long and short of it. Not sure if I buy the cold war paranoia excuse. But I don’t like to get into political discussions myself. Rather, I like to set up platforms for other people to discuss things freely. Such as my handy US Foreign Policy Museum proposal. That would be the place to work out those ideas.

Yes, I like like to set up platforms for others to discuss politics, although it annoys me when they conduct ad hominem attacks on people, such as by reducing everything to a phrase like “marxist puppet”…and then dismissing everything that might oppose such an idea as evil zionist – I mean “libertarian peanut gallery” or what have you.

Just seems childish. And it’s very much like what the government here does. Shuts up discussion of pros and cons of various policies by reducing opposition to “godless heathen zionist puppets” or what have you. Not very subtle.

A bit more about Iran: http://niacblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/iran-updates-july-8/ and, yes, I agree Obama and the white house gang don’t need to bother spending taxpayer money on this:

House trying to reinstate Iran “regime change” fund – Under the Bush administration, Congress appropriated up to $75 million–under the guise of “democracy assistance”–for regime change in Iran. The money, some of which went to legitimate democracy organizations, played right into the hands of the hardliners in Iran who used it as justification for clamping down on all types of activism. Even worse, the existence of the program tainted any and all civil society activists in Iran as “agents of the West” and effectively painted a target on their backs. Ultimately, the overwhelming message that civil society activists in Iran sent to the US was: if you want to help us, stop sending us money.
But just now, as the House gets ready to consider the 2010 State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, members of Congress are proposing amendments that will reinstate the regime change slush fund.

So, yeah. Put the money to better use by designing a museum of foreign policy, take all the skeletons out of the closet, atone for your past sins, and then…well, things might look a bit different. We’ll talk then.

Anyway, I’m under scrutiny right now. This isn’t paranoia. It’s been made clear to me. This here is, of course, a public website. So, pre-emptive strike. I’m on the record here. This is an attempt to make it clear I’m not a “zionist cia puppet” by stating my policy on America clearly. And that policy is that America would be well served by kick starting this foreign policy museum as a venue for peace and reconciliation.

Yes, pretty whimsical policy. I’m a flawed individual, entitled to my idiosyncratic, naive ideas, exercising free speech. The theory behind this whimsy is, first of all, America needs some good karma. It does need to atone. That’s just self evident. The truth will set you free. Second, if your goal is an Iran that can handle free speech and all the obnoxious human activity that entails (e.g., ubiquitous, unstoppable ad hominem attacks in every venue, spam, and other delights), if your goal is a government that owns up to its mistakes and atones (AH! Tears come to my eyes), then you need to approach this by example. Take away IRI’s justification for oppressing its own people. Bring this conversation to the level of actual conversation, rather than shady, destabilizing, tortuous, underhanded, double-standarded methodologies. Practice what you preach. Live the ideals!

And by “you” I mean…whatever. You know who you are. Sometimes you is me. We is us.

PS, this is the 18th anniversary of the student uprising of…18 years ago. The one that was squashed. Just outside, a car drove by, stereo blasting, youths yelling out the window. For a second I felt I was in a college town near a bar. Who knows what’s really going down. Tomorrow is another day.

[Rezwan]

Don’t ask me. I live in Iran. Things get trumped. Faith rules! Stop whining and accept the results.

[Rezwan]

Hi Folks,

Just moved the INL/ Next Generation Nuclear Plant, (High Temperature Gas Cooled), to its own topic thread. Seemed like it was taking on a direction of its own.

[Author]

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