| LED Digest 2074: Posting and Moderating Ethics |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. January 13, 2006 Issue #2074 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Multiple Sites ==-- ~ Susan Ward "The search engines love them!" ~ Mark Gering "I've been running multiple sites for the past 9 years..." --== Learning In This Enviroment ==-- ~ Don Baker "I wanted to share a link to an interesting short piece by Esther Dyson..." ~ Steven Rothberg "[Posts] must not stray across the line of disagreement so that they become personal." <Moderator Comment> ~ Salem Kashou "Is anybody out there brave enough to tackle the issue, with vision?" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== New Scams ==-- ~ Tom Anson --== Disappeared from Google ==-- ~ Marsha Kopan ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Susan Ward Subject: Multiple sites > I am thinking of creating additional "sister" web sites... > The main site would still contain all products. On the > new sites, I would enrich the content with useful articles... - Mark Roberts, LED 2073 Mark, Yes multiple sites work as long as they are different enough to not be mirror sites and you "enrich the content" as you stated... that is the most important thing. The search engines love them! A few words of advice... don't be obsessive with the links back and forth, if you can, have the sites on different servers (meaning the last two numbers of the IP address' are different)... consider creating a RSS feed for articles about birds, bird watching, reviews on related products, bird watching vacations etc. Use your keywords in the titles of those feeds when you can. Soon you will be on your way to number one! Good Luck! Susan Ward http://www.greatgeorgiaproperties.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Mark Gering Subject: Multiple sites In response to Mark Roberts' post on Multiple Sites... I've been running multiple sites for the past 9 years, trying to target the world and hone in on the search engines. However, it's my first 2 sites, MagneticSigns.com and Stickerz.com, that continue to fund my explorations into 40+ domains. I still think a catchy, well targeted domain name is the best ROI for a new site or product launch. Who's gonna find my Magnetic Signs at markmart.com? Even though our business has grown from the dining room table to our own 5000 square foot building, I still get a charge of excitement when I see the first $50 come in from a newly developed website, regardless how much time and effort I spent developing it. Herein lies the problem. Who are we? How do we answer the phone? We've become a web of identities which can lead to customer apprehension, needless to say upkeep is a bit cumbersome. Two years ago, we undertook incorporating under the name "igoodz", trying to pull ourselves under one corporate identity - i for internet, goodz for all the things well sell. It hasn't been easy. To the customer, we're still MagneticSigns.com or whatever site he ordered from. Every month when charge card bills come in, a few customers who don't recognize the name igoodz call asking why did we charge them money and who are we. I see this as a big concern in the scalability of our business and would love to hear from others. I continue to plug away at new products and ideas, mostly for the love of it, never giving in to the hope of being the next big hit. For a young business though, what's more important scalability or getting a few bucks rolling in? Fortunately, a couple of my ideas pay the bills. Hats off to LED for being there back when I started. Mark Gering ------- new post - new topic ------ From: Donald Baker Subject: Learning I'm getting away, a bit, from the original problem: > I am having a hard time learning in this environment. > Too many ideas and opinions expressed here are > leaving me feeling paralyzed. If we don't reach > consensus, it's all babble... - Salem Kashou, LED 2070 .. but I wanted to share a link to an interesting short piece by Esther Dyson, in which she discusses how our perception and use of time is changing, based on automation. Here's one quote that we can all appreciate after reading Salem's lament: -------------------- "It used to be that machines automated work, giving us more time to do other things. But now machines automate the production of attention-consuming information, which takes our time." -------------------- Read the whole thing here: http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_5.html Don Baker NSI Partners ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Steven Rothberg Subject: Learning > Sheryl Coppenger's post... is > (in my opinion) rude. - Michael Linehan, LED 2072 I also was offended by the language and tone used by Sheryl in her post, and her half hearted attempt at an apology only made it worse. Her apology, or rather her attempt to shift to the reader any blame for discomfort, reminded me of so many of today's sports stars who are caught with their pants down, figuratively or literally. (I live in Minnesota, so the actions of certain football players are pretty big news.) Rather than admitting that they were wrong, accepting responsibility, and committing to not acting that way in the future, they speak in the third person, use the passive voice, and apologize not for their error, but only for the other person's discomfort. To me, that is more offensive because the apologizer seems to be implying that they are not at fault and only are apologizing because the person that they insulted feels bad. Sort of, you shouldn't feel bad, but I feel sorry for you because for some unknown reason you obviously feel bad. Most discussion lists to which I belong, including this one, are moderated. And most moderators make a valiant attempt to filter out personal attacks. That seems to usually happen in this list. Adam, my vote would be for you to not publish posts which attack other members of the list. I see no problem and much value in posts which respectfully disagree with other members, but they must not stray across the line of disagreement so that they become personal. Steven Rothberg CollegeRecruiter.com job board http://www.collegerecruiter.com <Moderator Comment> Point well taken, Steven. Even though I've been doing this job for some 6 years, I still make mistakes; moderating is continually challenging, which is partly why it's so interesting. But it's certainly not easy, and I totally understand and appreciate your advice here. Let me openly state that I take full responsibility for what is published here, and that no one should point fingers at specific LEDers. If anyone should be blamed, it should be me, and it's good to get a lesson like this for me to learn from. After re-thinking this, it would have made good sense in this case not to publish Sheryl's contribution. I don't feel her response was intentionally personal or adversarial, yet the tone (so often misconstrued, or altogether missed, via the written word) could certainly be interpreted as tending toward those characteristics. But there's a slippery slope to this game. The more filtering I do of posts, the more invasive my role becomes as moderator. Certainly this isn't a problem with extremely negative posts -- in fact, it's the definition of the moderator's job. But in professional forums such as the LED I grant more leeway by the members to contribute what they will. I give posters here much more freedom than I do on other forums, especially if they have such a prolific record as Sheryl's. Sheryl Coppenger has had 70 posts published in the LED, dating back to issue 757 (published in January of 2000). While not getting carte blanche, Sheryl's posts definitely receive a degree of leeway; when I read her contributions they are more likely than not to be published. This is simply because of her great record here, along with my earned respect for her knowledge and the confidence I have in Sheryl improving the forum by her postings. I will continue to work hard at this, and no doubt, continue to make mistakes. As I said, it is challenging, but I don't mean to make this any sort of excuse -- more an explanation of the thinking that goes on "behind the scenes." My goal is always to maintain a professional forum, but a free and open one, where any kind of opinion can be expressed, so long that it is impersonal, professional, and on-topic. Whether this means I must publish contributions that negatively reflect on me, or the LED, or things I have investment in, should be irrelevant, and that's the fine line I'm treading when I begin moderating more aggressively. Here the right metaphor may be the "edge of the wedge", or the camel's nose under the tent, for once I start filtering posts based on tone, then maybe I'll be tempted to filter based on personal inclination, and before you know it the tent is blown off the ground and we have a completely different forum. I'm exaggerating here, but the point I'm trying to make is that as my moderating becomes more hands-on, the LED becomes more "constructed", more conceived, and may tend towards self-interest. I undertake a responsibility here to leave things as they are, to the largest extent possible, in order to facilitate an open exchange. Yet I also have a responsibility to keep things professional and impersonal, and I acknowledge that I tripped up there. And sorry for the lengthy response, just trying to communicate some thoughts. Again - thanks to Michael Linehan and Steven Rothberg for the concern and reminders. These are important ethical concerns that need to be acknowledged, both by posters and moderators. Best wishes, adam ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Salem Kashou Subject: Learning The responses posted in 2071 were good examples of what I was expecting. The discussion to help "improve this forum" was ignored while the question itself was dissected. For instance, Beth said "Sorry, Salem, but there really isn't any consensus, which is one of the really cool, albeit frustrating, things about the web." Sorry, Beth, my concern was specific to this well-founded Digest only, not the universe of knowledge. Secondly, was Sheryl "...IMO if a beginner can't get anything out of the discussion here maybe he should find a newbie forum someplace and come back when he's "grown up"..." Typical, Ad hominem and a waste of time. Is anybody out there brave enough to tackle the issue, with vision? If not, don't repsond. If the concern is moot, don't respond. If you have something that might help pull this information together, respond. Salem Kashou, Marketing Manager Kangaroo Brands, Inc. www.kangaroobrands.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Anson Subject: A twist on the Nigerian letter? Hi LEDers, I just received a rather strange email. My first thought was that it was just another twist of the Nigerian letters, but it doesn't have the normal markers. I did a Google search on the phone number and came up with another person asking about an virtually identical letter dated a few weeks before. Here's the email: -------------------- My name is Mrs. Marie O'Sullivan. I am a dying woman who had decided to donate what I have to you for charitable purposes. I am 70 years old and was diagnosed for cancer (brain tumor) about 4 years ago, immediately after the death of my husband, who had left me everything he worked for. I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my late husband to the you for solely for charitable purposes, rather than allow my husband's relatives to use his hard earned funds for ungodly purposes. I will be going in for an operation very soon, and i pray that i survive the operation. I have decided to WILL/donate the sum of $1,500,000 (One million five hundred thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and to help the motherless, less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows. At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls, due to my recent ill health, and i have been restricted by my doctor from taking telephone calls because i deserve all the rest i can get. Presently, I have informed my lawyer about my decision in WILLING this fund to you. I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others. Kindly Contact my lawyer through this email address ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) or call him (+44 8707119040) if you are interested, so that he can arrange the release of the funds ($1,500,000.00) to you. My lawyer's name is Anthony Burnett. I know I have never met you but I have been directed to do this by God, and i hope you act sincerely. -------------------- Has anyone heard about this before? Tom Anson www.therapeutic-grade.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Marsha Kopan Subject: Google I spent a considerable amount of time last summer SEOing my websites. I was quite pleased that both of them made it to the top 10 in Google in a very short period of time. Recently, one of my sites has totally disappeared from Google and I haven't made any changes to its content. I am baffled. Your wisdom and input would be appreciated. Marsha Kopan www.execsecsrv.com www.associationmanagementresources.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." - John Powell |
