November 29, 2003

Leaving the League of Liberals

I hate to have to do this, because I really wanted to see a strong group of liberal blogs working together, but unfortunately, I'm no longer comfortable being a member of the League of Liberals.

This was posted at The Truth Laid Bear this morning. Apparently, 5 of the roughly 50 blogs in the League have had multiple Site Meter counters on them. NZ Bear believes that this is artificially inflating the traffic counts to all of the blogs in the group. The 5 blogs in question are run by Barry and his family, and he has posted a response (you may need to scroll down as the permalink doesn't seem to be working) explaining why that's not the case, and noting that there are a large number of questionable traffic reports for conservative blogs.

In terms of the technology, I'm not enough of a geek to fully understand either the accusation OR the explanation. I am simply not comfortable at all with the situation.

I do want to note that it is only a very small number of League blogs (5 out of about 50) that are in question, and all are owned and operated by the same family. Just as I was unaware that this was being done, so were most other League members.

Some people will probably say I'm being "weak" or a "chickenshit", and am not willing to stand up to conservatives making false accusations. Perhaps I am - I really don't know at this point, especially since I don't understand the technology of the Site Meters enough to understand if the accusations are false or not. My problem is that one of the things I've tried hard to build with "different strings" is a reasonable amount of credibility. It's why I've tried to own up to it when I make mistakes, why I try to make sure I understand (and provide) the context of a quote I'm criticizing rather than just running with the "questionable" portion that's being cited elsewhere, and many of the other things I do.

I make no claim to or pretense of being unbiased - I AM a liberal - and how I view or interpret things will be very different from how a conservative may view or interpret the same information, actions, statements or situation. But I want to at least try to provide enough information about the subject matter that someone can go, read it for themselves and make their own evaluation of it. To me, all of this comes under the concept of "playing fair" - and that's the approach I want to take with this blog.

So, even though I realize that it is very likely that no actual "wrong" was done, the fact is that it simply looks bad, and it looks like at least one group of blogs may (may) have been trying to take advantage of technical weaknesses in the system. Whether they were or not, I leave up to you to decide for yourself. You can read the accusation and responses at the links noted above.

I know this may not make sense to some people - my leaving when I can't say for sure if anything wrong was actually done, and I'm sorry for that. It's just what I think I have to do.

Posted by thorswitch at November 29, 2003 05:05 PM | TrackBack


Comments

I would implore you to reconsider. Take a deep breath, count to ten, find your happy place, whatever, then lay low for a bit. I think the spirit of the Ecosystem has been violated, but things can be fixed.

Besides, I don't want to have to rejigger my blogrolls. Oh, the humanity!

Posted by: NTodd at November 29, 2003 06:17 PM

Thanks guys - but like I said in the post, I've really tried to earn a decent reputation (though whether I've succeeded or not is another matter), and I tend to be a bit skittish about risking it on how others judge the behaviour of someone or something I have little control over - especially when I'm not even sure what *I* think of the behaviour in question.

At this point, if I were to consider rejoining the League (or if I were to consider joining another liberal alliance for any purpose - not just the New Blog Showcase) I think I'd only be comfortable doing so if there were a code of ethics that is taken seriously by all members that would disallow behaviours that serve primarily to "game" any of the counting systems or otherwise violate either the letter OR the spirit of any such systems or contests - even if any other teams are violating them left and right.

I will be adding several of the blogs back to my main blogroll, though, as there is a lot of good work out there, and I certainly want to promote it!

Posted by: Kriselda Jarnsaxa at November 29, 2003 08:22 PM

KJ: Your site will remain on my sidebar bloglist whatever. Your dedication to avoiding even a possible hint of connection to questionability is worthy of respect, even if this incident should turn out later to have been a misunderstanding. It is sad to see such pain no matter what is going on, and frankly I am not literate enough in geekspeak to understand the alllegations or the defenses. Always make up your own mind and follow your own conscience.

Posted by: Ayn Clouter at November 30, 2003 09:29 AM

It was a fault of LOL.

It still doesn't concern me on iota, because Bozeman has fixed it or NZBear. Also, it is a VERY common practice across the blogging Web, including sites belonging to other ideologues. It's why people have huge lists of blogs - and I and you, it seems, only list ones we actually read.

I have reservations about joining this LOL because such a joining sounded geeky. But two blogs I respected had beocme members so I felt comfortable doing so. I have found a lot of other good voices that I'd never read or even heard aobut thrtough them - inclusing this site.

So it's done what I want it to. With this post here you've made it clear your position. If anyone were to say that you're with "the cheatng LOL" 1) they would be out of date because those problems have been fixed and 2) You could point them to this post and explin that you're there for the good it does/did in finding new voices.

Posted by: Andrew | BYTE BACK at November 30, 2003 03:15 PM

I admire your intellectual fortitude. Blogrolled.

Posted by: Jason at November 30, 2003 08:50 PM

I would stay away from any further attempts at political action if I were you. No group is ever going to be pure enough to meet your ethical demands. If they are, I can pretty much guarantee you that they'll be totally useless in terms of advancing a progressive political agenda. I don't post on the LOL group because I'm too busy with my real life and my blog, but you used about the weakest excuse I've ever seen for punching out. You do put out a great blog and I wish you whatever you deem success in writing it.

Posted by: Ron Obvious at December 1, 2003 07:28 AM

Kris: you have to follow your own conscience. I don't understand all of the ramifications of this but it is your name out there, not someone else's. I'll keep reading you, regardless.
cheers!

Posted by: lizard at December 1, 2003 08:08 AM