UPDATED POST: Friday - it's over this evening!
In the original manifesto, it said:
1] adopt the motto: ‘do unto other blogs as you would have them do unto you.’
In the Blogpower ethos, it said:
f] As a family there is a certain decency required when you visit, take your shoes off and come inside to someone's nice clean blog. This is not to say we can't express our views even heatedly - we do. Very strongly.
Many opinions have been expressed here in the comments that the thing over Phishez is not interesting to them but that's hardly helpful. It comes down to whether or not she did this:
1. Took over someone else's blog but retained the url and header of the former blogger so that any reader thinks they're coming to the former blogger's site;
2. Readers see the former blogger's name "in lights" but then the posts are signed by Phishez. The logical thought is that she is a guest poster;
3. When they read these posts, they find the "guest poster" attacking the blogger whose header is still being used.
Until recently it was clearly verifiable, sorry, Lord Nazh, that this is what Phishez was doing. This is not opinion but a simple "was she" or "wasn't she". So the only question after that is whether this breaches 1] and f] above.
However, BP procedures on new members demand we conduct a vote on controversial pending members. We did this on UKN&P and we're doing it now.
So we need interested parties to e-mail jameshighamatmaildotcom until 21:00, Friday, London time and he then sends names and votes to Colin Campbell for verification:
Yes - Phishez gets in;
No - Phishez must wait three months.
UPDATED FINAL VOTES [Friday 19:49]:
Yes, admit now: 2
No, she waits three months: 7
Wrote to abstain: 2
Comments made in the comments section are welcome but are not counted as votes. Closes Friday evening at 21:00 London time but unless there's a late surge, it's pretty well over now.
My statement, for what it's worth, is here:
OK people - time to wind this thing up. As promised, I'll send the names and votes to Colin [not that he wants them but that's what comes of being a senior admin]but I'll do that tomorrow morning now.
No changes to the tallies and one of the "no"s might have been an abstain but I'll check tomorrow morning. Either way, it's pretty clear and certain things came out of it:
1] There is a certain pride in BP now and many feel we should move beyond the mud slinging and laundry airing and I'm quite sure there are those, even among the admins, who blame me for letting it happen.
And yet we had to have the matter out. When I put a spanner in the works for Phishez, I didn't do it lightly and it was as much for my reputation as hers [to show it was not done through any antipathy] that we had to hear a certain amount of it.
But not this much.
So yes, I agree with you we need to find a better way and I'm open to suggestions if you are. But it must remain fair, which this was, even if it was not enjoyable.
2] I think we're always going to disagree about ethics but there are some base levels below which we can't sink. Quite a few BPers seem to agree with that and I can tell you we've had some enquiries about membership out of this process we've gone through - detractors please bear that in mind.
3] So to Phishez. If you look at a recent Blogfocus, you'll see her little cats featured so there is absolutely no personal "stick" in this. You might not be aware either that she and I have had some correspondence on other matters - blogger to blogger.
On the BP entry though, it was another matter and the results are such that she'll have to, if she's willing, wait three months and I have to now reveal that there was pressure on me via e-mail to eliminate her altogether.
Everyone makes mistakes and some of us would defend the three month rule - it gives people a chance to get the head together, see where things went wrong and to regroup. Or not. Surely this is healthier.
I don't know how relevant the late entry of Crushed into the fray is and I suspect everyone just wants the whole thing to stop here and now without any other implosions and suicides.
I think everyone wants it to get back to BP Blogroundup and the like and don't forget that we have the Autumn internal awards coming up [handled by someone other than me.
So over to you everyone.
31 comments:
Sorry, BPers but it was a difficult day and I'm for bed. tehrefore, any response you make to this post I can't check until tomorrow morning. Don't thnk I'm ignoring you.
Personally I have no idea what's going on so won't vote. Thanks for the information James but I don't have enough to decide one way or the other at the moment. I don't think that blog hijacking is a good thing- I struggle to know how that worked exactly- but to be honest I just don't know enough about what has been happening to come to any decision.
Incidentally James when you say two thirds- is that two thirds of the members voting or two thirds of the members including those who aren't voting.
"Phishez took over Uber's blog and attacks Uber from there, along with another woman who has bought into the fight for some reason."
Unless Phish tried to pretend (or misinform) people and say she was Uber, it is not a crime to take a deleted URL (my last one was hijacked by porn)
I go with graachi here.
All I can see is that three of them need to sit down together it sort it out between them. Properly and fully.
It is all my fault - can I help it if mad women fall hopelessly in love with me just because I give them the best night in bed they have ever had?
I am hoping for a threesome from this - or possibly a foursome if my friend Ms Smack shows up..... what??? what did I do now???
I don't know if I have a vote yet, but even if I do this whole thing is too much like Eastenders for me to take an interest.
UPDATE [Wednesday morning]:
Yes, admit now: 0
No, she waits three months: 3
Wrote to abstain: 1
Typical comment was this:
"Vote on Acceptance of Phishez: No
Reasons: Surely the aims of Blogpower include ethics and courtesy.
It is not ethical to hijack someone else's blog url and admitting to Blogpower someone who has done that seems to me to condone that behaviour. If we had not known it might be different but we do. The stories about publishing private emails etc, may or may not be true, but if true, that's not ethical behaviour either. I take it you do know.
The comments in Blogpower from Ubermouth, who is not a member nor applying for membership were out of line, in my opinion which you might remember if she ever does apply for membership."
Comments made in the comments section are welcome but are not votes.
Phishez herself remains virtually silent, reading, watching to see the lie of the land - look at her comments above in which she just says that all will come out.
It would seem that any comments by anybody fed enough fuel to the fire, without me adding to it too. I chose to not fight because it would have reduced into a personal sh*t slinging match. Can you imagine if I had instigated a fight here? How would you have seen me then? However, I feel that I have been backed into a corner regarding this and the only option is to defend myself and fight. Since this is a non-BP issue, I don't want to do it here. The last comments thread showed well enough what to expect. But it has been made a BP issue, so I guess here and now is the best place.
As James said in the comments section where this all happened All right, it seems I'll have to comment and I was hoping to avoid it and let it all go away.
Anybody who reads my blog would also know that I've been swamped in the last few weeks with social commitments and job applications, and my own blog has suffered, let alone having to deal with this.
With regards to the incident, my view can be found here. This was the only reference I made to this at all. Whereas the third post on her view can be found here. Which do you see to be the bigger attack.
With regards to some of the allegations that were made...
exploiting my links by spreading malicious lies about me and taking another url that I was known as.
I haven't mentioned this on mine, or any other blogs (apart from about three comments on hers, and the post I linked earlier). Find me these lies that I've spread.
I did take those URL's. Opportunistically. I held them for two days, locked down and made private. One was opened for reasons listed below.
MY pc was also hacked same time frame and my bookmarks with urls were wiped along with being locked out of my email account for 24 hrs
How does me taking a URL that was deleted (and thus publicly available) equal me hacking into her computer/emails etc?
I opened acc'ts in her and mystery womans name as encouragement for me to have my acocunt back and have not been publishing on it nor is it opened to the public.
Close, but not quite. The reason I opened up the blogs I took was because these URLS that were opened linked my internet username with my real name. Which is something that I have never allowed to happen. The blog she set up was username full name (Sxx Hxx:My Life of insanity) and as the url she has used my full name.blogspot.com, and titled it Phishez Rule: My Life of Insanity. I have not accepted the 'invitation' to view the site in question, yet I can view it any time I drop over.
James also commented that we were trading blows... Since she set up her new URL, that she is using as per normal, I opened up the blogs that I'd taken and did the post that was linked earlier. Since then she has opened the two URLs, plus the one parodying my net name. All of these have (or have had) posts on them. She calls these 'encouragement'. I call it bullying. And I don't define that as trading blows. That term implies that all actions have been retaliated.
Oh, Boy blogger and Mystery Woman haven't spoken since Uber did the same thing that she did to me, to her, three months or so ago. Mystery woman had nothing to do with any of this.
Alot of this does come down to 'he-said/she-said'. So the only ones who will know the whole truth are the people involved.
I don't appreciate finding that this was going to a vote this way. Especially when I'm portrayed as a conniving backstabber who's too sly to enter a fight. I think if it was going to come down to this, then I should have been given warning and a chance to defend myself.
Your own ethos can be found here. I am not aware that I have breached any of these with this issue.
g] We don't love all that our brothers and sisters get up to in the real family and neither do we in Blogpower. However, when one member severely rocks the boat, the family closes ranks and makes its feelings known.
This event happened outside of BP. And the person who bought it to BP and 'rocked the boat' isn't a member. I have actively avoided causing a scene and spreading trouble with this. I have refused to let it spread to my blog. Where I felt I had to defend myself it was a comment here, or a short post (the one that was linked in the previous comment).
I do find these interesting.
d] As a family, it looks after its own but where we differ from a RL family is that we are open and welcoming to new members of any persuasion
j] Our ethos is tolerance and egality
I'm with Ordovicious and Gracchi
It's worse than Eastenders. It's more like Wife Swap.
I haven't got the faintest idea who's shagging who, or who's upset with who. And nor do i care.
More importantly are they good bloggers?
I want to clarify that I was not making any statments questioning the validity of James's information. I hold James in very high regard and consider him "noble" and unblemished in his ethics.
I may have seemed very upset for I felt terribly victimized with the victimizer trying to avoid accountability, using such low tactics as spin and perpetuating defaming lies about me.
I do consider it a blog hijacking when both known names are taken after feeling chased out, for the express purpose of defaming me , exploiting my links/readership .
I have never opened accounts, in these two womens names, to the public and only posted what I expected from them ( a private letter , if you will) on each blog.
The 3rd, I opened days later to refute the lies on my hijacked blog, as I clearly did not want to breach Phish's safety by using the blog in her real name to address the issues.
I apologise for statements made here earlier. I was not aware that this was a 'members only meeting' taking place. I thought it was a message board for all bloggers, overseen by BP.
As Phishez had turned off comment moderator on my hijacked blog and her spin came here , where she did not control my opportunity to offera rebuttal, it was what I was doing.
I have now removed all blogs set up and ask that Phishez show some integrity and give me back my two blog urls.
I do not know Phishez and have no real history with her and do not wish to have any protracted disputes with her.
Thank you to the BP members for addressing this issue .
Phishez from the start, my main blog was public( how I spotted it) and was all ready posted on BEFORE I opened accounts.Taking someone's blog within minutes of chasing her out is not taking over an available name per chance...it was exploitative and sinister with evil intentions.IT was never closed off to public and you did not have it for 2 days before posting.Just give me my blogs back please and we can all move on.
I can't comment because we're conducting the vote, nor can I correspond with any of the three during this time.
To Tiberius, who asked a point about the two thirds - it's two thirds of how ever many we get by Friday evening.
There is no point going through the same problem as last time where there was a clear expression but because I prescribed a certain minimum number of voters, this led to indecision.
We talked that one out at the time, if you remember. Also, there might be many abstentions this time and that's not going to help decide.
I think if anyone's interested, they'll vote. If they're not interested, they won't vote but can't then turn around and say they disagree, once it's over.
It's like any election - if one doesn't exercise one's choice, one can't really have his/her opinion considered.
I just sent names to Colin as of this moment. Surprised more admins haven't voted.
UPDATE [Wednesday evening]:
Yes, admit now: 2
No, she waits three months: 4
Wrote to abstain: 1
Comments made in the comments section are welcome but are not counted as votes. Closes Friday evening at 21:00 London time.
I have no interest in the goings-on among the parties: the postings do none of them any favours.
Whether or not a blogger is admitted to BP should have nothing to do with their private life. "Pinching" deleted blogs I see as still part of their private goings-on - if only they would keep them private.
We could do with the parties growing up but the decision about joining BP should be based on the quality of the blog and not on the quality of their private life.
I haven't read the proposed blog and so won't vote.
Isn't it about time we had a membership fee?
Nothing personal, but this is all bollocks and does not reflect well on what we sought to achieve early on. If we want Bollockspower, Baloneypower or Soappower, we are close.
I am with Pommy and the like. If they have a good blog consistent with our objectives, then they should be admitted.
I just roll me eyes when I see some of this dirty laundry aired in public.
Dear Members
In the original manifesto, it said:
1] adopt the motto: ‘do unto other blogs as you would have them do unto you.’
In the Blogpower ethos, it said:
f] As a family there is a certain decency required when you visit, take your shoes off and come inside to someone's nice clean blog. This is not to say we can't express our views even heatedly - we do. Very strongly.
Many opinions have been expressed here in the comments that the thing over Phishez is not interesting to them but that's hardly helpful. It comes down to whether or not she did this:
1. Took over someone else's blog but retained the url and header of the former blogger so that any reader thinks they're coming to the former blogger's site;
2. They see the former blogger's name "in lights" but then the psots are signed by Phishez. The logical thought is that she is a guest poster;
3. When they read these posts, they find the "guest poster" attacking the blogger whose header is still being used.
Until recently it was clearly verifiable that that is what Phishez was doing. So the only question after that is whether this breaches 1] and f] above.
Do you think for one second that I'm personally interested in any of this stuff - I have much better and more necessary things to be doing in RL and on my own blog.
However, BP procedures on new members demand we conduct a vote on controversial pending members. We did this on UKN&P and we're doing it now.
So we need interested parties to e-mail jameshighamatmaildotcom until 21:00, Friday, London time and he then sends names and votes to Colin Campbell for verification:
Yes - Phishez gets in;
No - Phishez must wait three months.
If two thirds of those voting say yes, she's in. If less than that, she waits three months, assuming she'd still be interested.
UPDATED VOTES [Thursday morning]:
Yes, admit now: 2
No, she waits three months: 4
Wrote to abstain: 1
Comments made in the comments section are welcome but are not counted as votes. Closes Friday evening at 21:00 London time.
I never attempted to pass those blogs off as my own. They didn't have a format that resembled the previous. The header wasn't even the same. There's nothing 'in lights' on that blog. There's not even any links. I never attempted to pass myself off as a guest poster. That post wasn't an attack. It was an attempt to defend myself and was clear from the very first line that the blog was no longer hers.
I agree with what's been said by several people here. This is of no interest to anybody. I feel that I've been forced to add to the mess in the last few days and 'air my dirty laundry', which no one wants to read! Especially as this was something I've been avoiding.
It seems that BP has taken on something that has no bearing on them, formed opinions without hearing the whole story, is of no interest to most members, and through its actions, have acted in an exclusive manner. Sounds very un-BP in all.
Phishez, you ran the blog with Ubermouth's name still as the lead name in her header, still in large letters and you then added some other details to show it was you.
This is the central issue and the other things you state above here may be so but don't alter the fact that you retained the girl's name in the header, in large letters and blogged under that header.
There are clear ethical questions about that. She was just as bad but you're the issue here.
Why would you retain her name and operate from her url, instead of from your own?
You lightened the page layout and signed posts under your own name.
The point is, readers came to that site expecting Ubermouth to be there at that site but got you instead.
They were not going to expect that the page changes were not hers, just as my new changes are expected to be mine.
They would then read your posts and be surprised that they attacked the supposed owner of the blog. You did say "Ubermouth has gone somewhere else" but again, there is a guest blogger system in the sphere and any reader would expect you were minding the blog for her.
If the header proclaimed "Phishez" in large letters or even another name like Sanity Still Optional, something like that,it would ahve been clear but you chose not to do that.
You kept both her url and name up front, her readers came there and they had your words about her to read.
Whichever way this vote goes and I'll accept whatever it is, you really need, Phishez, to look at blog ethics in general.
Name one BP member who does this sort of thing? Just one name would do.
I say wait 3 months.
It is not much of a loss, as one is still on the provisional blogroll.
Alternatively, I would be happy to remove that delay if the admins or the one whose identity was hijacked say so.
Matt
Why is my name featured in the post? aren't emails sacred anymore :)
OK, this is a comment that has been really thought about before being published.
But I think the right thing to do is make it.
I have talked tonight with ALL the people I use pseuedonyms for at my blog.
And I really care about what we are doing here so much, I am prepared to throw all my cards away for it.
I think Blogpower is so beautiful, what it stands for is such a gesture of hope, I really do not care any more what the bloggopshere says about me.
We talk. We share thought. Never forget how powerful that is.
I am Boy Blogger. Half of you must know that anyway, the rest blame others wrongly.
I started blogging, because I REALLY DO CARE about what I say. I have found a life philosophy that to me, is good, and I want to share it, because life is so amazing, that I want all of you to join me in loving every minute, every second of it.
Please read my post on Hedonism and Ethics.
Ubermouth- If, after three months of phone conversation with me, you don't understand my life philopsophy, you never will. Publish everything you have threatened to publish.
If anyone judges me the process by which I have reached my conclusions on life by the route I have taken to get there, then you are indeed right, my hope in humanity is false.
But yes, EVEN SHOULD YOU DO THAT, EVEN SHOULD YOU PUBLISH THE WORST, I WILL, forgive you. I promised you that.
I will maintain it.
As I have always told you, ONE DAY, the cycle of hate must end. The conceot of sides, enemies, etc is nasty.
Blogging gives us hope.
Hope that we, a communicative species can solve our problems through this medium.
I blog for this.
Because, ordinary, flawed human that I am, I see hope in this medium.
Publish all you threaten, I 've just decided, I'll carry on anyway.
And I'll still love you.
THIS is what we are doing here.
Rising above the nastiness, selfishness, etc. that has characterised human history to date.
Phish, I really owe you a major apology. I've not stood out and told your story, when I said- which is true- you are my blogging sister, you have been there for me and I will defend you on this medium as long as I have breath in my body.
James- I think it's true to say now, from e-mails you have received from me over this, and this comment, you really NOW at last know the truth.
Publish my real name if you want, Carly. Publish my address. Publish my Home phone. Publish my mobile. Publish my life online. Tell these good people every dirty little secret about me. Yes, they are dirty.
I am certainly no angel.
Do that to me, if you want.
I'll not hide on this medium, or lie on this medium.
I really care more about this, about the integrity of this medium and what we are doing here than you will ever know.
Because it is beautiful.
It truly is.
Do your worst.
I'll still blog, Carly. I've decided that.
Hey, my flatmate just read this and said 'That's you, you tell them, you're a good guy.'
I don't need approval- I am a good guy, and I know it, I know it because of the interaction I receive every day from the people I love.
Let's draw a line under all this, please, because however you judge her, I love her as my blogging sister and I'll stand by her AS A PERSON, a person who has such a lot of love to share.
My flatmate, my closest trusted sister in RL has just checked this before I commented.
If she agrees with it, it's right, because I have yet to meet a girl with a heart as caring as hers.
We're people.
People telling our stories.
That's blogging.
Closing statement this evening, if you don't mind, after it's all finally done with.
I don't think there is much to say after Mr Ingsoc has commented...
Yes Mutley - one of the three has put his point of view.
Closing statement this evening, if you don't mind, after it's all finally done with.
Crushed-This explains your early call to me this morning,trying to absolve yourself for a post you "didn't recall writing as you were sleep walking".Your promised explanatory phone call tonight is not necessary.I shall now take your advice about "rising above liars and backstabbers with agendas"and comment no further.
P.S Despite my assurances that I would NEVER post personal , identifying or harmful details about you, it seems that you were not so considerate about divulging MY real name and harmful,untrue statements about me.Thank you "Crushed".
OK people - time to wind this thing up. As promised, I'll send the names and votes to Colin [not that he wants them but that's what comes of being a senior admin]but I'll do that tomorrow morning now.
No changes to the tallies and one of the "no"s might have been an abstain but I'll check tomorrow morning. Either way, it's pretty clear and certain things came out of it:
1] There is a certain pride in BP now and many feel we should move beyond the mud slinging and laundry airing and I'm quite sure there are those, even among the admins, who blame me for letting it happen.
And yet we had to have the matter out. When I put a spanner in the works for Phishez, I didn't do it lightly and it was as much for my reputation as hers [to show it was not done through any antipathy] that we had to hear a certain amount of it.
But not this much.
So yes, I agree with you we need to find a better way and I'm open to suggestions if you are. But it must remain fair, which this was, even if it was not enjoyable.
2] I think we're always going to disagree about ethics but there are some base levels below which we can't sink. Quite a few BPers seem to agree with that and I can tell you we've had some enquiries about membership out of this process we've gone through - detractors please bear that in mind.
3] So to Phishez. If you look at a recent Blogfocus, you'll see her little cats featured so there is absolutely no personal "stick" in this. You might not be aware either that she and I have had some correspondence on other matters - blogger to blogger.
On the BP entry though, it was another matter and the results are such that she'll have to, if she's willing, wait three months and I have to now reveal that there was pressure on me via e-mail to eliminate her altogether.
Everyone makes mistakes and some of us would defend the three month rule - it gives people a chance to get the head together, see where things went wrong and to regroup. Or not. Surely this is healthier.
I don't know how relevant the late entry of Crushed into the fray is and I suspect everyone just wants the whole thing to stop here and now without any other implosions and suicides.
I think everyone wants it to get back to BP Blogroundup and the like and don't forget that we have the Autumn internal awards coming up [handled by someone other than me.
So over to you everyone.
Cripes! A little bit of work commitment bogs my life down for a week or two and all hell breaks loose. Everyone should be sent to bed without any supper, at least until they learn some bloody grown-up decorum. Honestly people, haven’t you got some real problems to worry about?
James, I agree with you on this. Cold showers all around.
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