Social Media

Most of you have probably seen the hullabaloo over the new gunny social media site creating profiles for people who aren't actually members. The administrator claims that they're there for reference purposes. (My question is, why not make them "pages" instead of "profiles" then? A "page" implies information and sharing about a subject. A "profile" implies a person is behind it.)

Anywho, I'm not jumping on that particular bandwagon the way you might think. See, when I first started noticing this whole shebang I got curious. Since I'm not a cat, I figured it couldn't be wrong to go take a look, see what it was all about, etc.

So I created a profile. I used non-blog information, since I didn't have a dog in that fight, and didn't really want to get one. (You see how well that worked out for me?) I poked around, had the impression that the dude was being sort of shady in his usage of people's images and reputations, and to the overall format, layout, and content, my response was a resounding "meh."

The idea isn't a bad one, I don't know that the gun community needs it's own social networking site but hey if someone wants to run one, great, I'm sure there will be people who want to be involved.

However, the content just isn't there yet... normally I would say that the users would make up for that over the next six months or so, but the admin has said elsewhere that he's generating content for the forum he'll have on the site. Considering what happened later, I have a feeling that the forum is going to be all admin all the time and if you disagree, your ideas will never see daylight.

See, when I saw the disclaimer on some profiles (after looking at four or five of them, I noticed the fine print in an area that normally gets skimmed over by, well, everybody) I asked a couple of the people I happened to know if they'd seen how the profiles were set up. They hadn't, so I passed off my info, in order to let them see what was up, and avoid any spam or other negative crap from joining. Not to mention, it's my info, if I want to pass it around to the world, it's nobody elses business, since it doesn't actually effect the site detrimentally. No one I gave the info to posted anything or created any kind of disturbance to the site, they merely went into my account and looked around.

That night, I logged in to do some more poking and see the areas of the site I hadn't looked at yet, and about that time my email dinged. I had messages on the site. Ok, so I go check them and it's the admin. This is the conversation that followed, spread over two different message threads:

Admin Sent 14 hours, 26 minutes ago

Welcome… this site is real and I’m not a nutjob, no matter what the chicken hawks say…

Mousy Sent 14 hours, 15 minutes ago

Hey, dude, why are you changing my profile???

I signed up to see what the hell this was all about, I go to work, and I come home to find a site admin has modified my profile to call me a dummy, I don’t really appreciate that.

Admin Sent 14 hours, 11 minutes ago

Are you sure you aren’t the test account that someone created, emailed to 50 people, and has been logging in all day?

Mousy Sent 14 hours, 8 minutes ago

By the way, this profile belongs to (Real Name Redacted) original email on it was (personal email address redacted) a personal email that I used for my horse training business. I am a blogger but not one that you’re maintaining a profile for, I didn’t use blog info specifically because I don’t have a dog in this fight and was merely curious.

I would appreciate it if you would return my profile to it’s original content, please.

Mousy Sent 14 hours, 3 minutes ago

I provided my personal login information to a few people who were also curious about the site but didn’t want to let themselves in for a lot of spam. I didn’t know if the site generated a lot of emails yet, so I couldn’t reassure them. I don’t believe that’s a problem anywhere else. Apparently it is here, though.

If this is the way you plan to treat your users, I doubt you’ll get much interest. Arbitrarily changing a profile does not scream friendly social networking site to me.

Admin Sent 14 hours, 4 minutes ago

I’m not stupid… create an account… post in Uncle’s forum… email username and password to your buddies… see logins from all over the country. My tracker is so good it tells me what kind of underwear you have on.

Mousy Sent 13 hours, 58 minutes ago

I provided my account information to people who were curious about the site. That does not make it any less my account.

Regardless of the number of people logging into the account, there hasn’t been anything disruptive done with the account. I haven’t even posted anything. So why exactly do you care how many people have access to my personal account?

Your touch of class is showing, by the way.

Admin Sent 14 hours, 1 minute ago

I will do so… I was just having a little fun.

Mousy Sent 13 hours, 53 minutes ago

This does not come across as just a little fun.

This comes across as abusing the power you have over your users. Not to mention rude and inappropriate, talking about my underwear when I’m trying to make clear to you in as polite a way as I can at this moment that this is really my personal profile created in order to learn more about your site, and make a decision on whether I would be participating or not.

You’ve created a bad impression with me, sir, and damaged your credibility with one of your first users. It doesn’t seem like a good plan to me.

I do see that you have made an attempt at returning my profile to the way it was, but I still see the ”created and maintained” disclaimer at the top of the page.

Admin Sent 12 hours, 2 minutes ago

I’ll remove it… sharing passwords and usernames so your buddies don’t have to sign up is a cardinal sin in the eyes of most webmasters and caused my security software to issue an alert.

No big deal, I now realize you really didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not a nut job

Mousy Sent 51 minutes ago

I see that it’s gone now, and I appreciate that.

I would also appreciate an apology. Your front page says that a user’s profile is their personal space on the site, and you not only took the profile and claimed it as your own, you altered my information, put me down, and made comments that could be interpreted as sexually harassing when I tried to rectify your mistake.

Admin Sent 16 hours, 51 minutes ago

I meant as much harm by that comment as you did by sharing your username and password with so many people. I’m sorry for any unintended stress. It won’t happen again.

The time stamps are wonky because I copy/pasted them at different points... mostly because I wanted to have the record in case he decided to lock me out of my account again.

So this is how he treats users that have no actual wrongdoing. If you stumble across this site and think about joining up, keep in mind that the admin apparently has no problem hijacking accounts. For the record, he'd changed the profile picture, and description, to a shot of a "for dummies" book and "a test account for dummies like you." When he attempted to revert the profile information, he put the description "chick who loves guns" when the original content was "Just a chick who likes guns."

Somehow I don't see his behavior as leading to a successful site... Although he did finally apologize. Kind of.... in his own special way.

Since I first started putting this post together, the admin has been trolling gunblogs which were making negative comments about his site (wonder if he'll find this one since I refuse to link, and intend to look for a way to delete the profile as soon as it publishes) and then later putting up a blog post (but blogs suck, I thought?) on the front page of his site, proclaiming that he has intentionally been trolling to prove a point.

I will grant that there may be a certain segment of the gunblogging community that might intimidate new shooters. Mostly because, when you're stepping into any new area, say rock climbing for illustrations sake, you get told that one person is the guru. The great and terrible thing about the internet is that you can go directly to the guru... and the guru is talking about climbing Everest without a Sherpa or a tent.

It's so far beyond your experience that it can be intimidating, especially because experienced people tend to address things as if everyone listening or reading is at the same level of experience. Not a slam, just a fact. In the gun world, there also isn't always a clear path to follow to get from "I jumped up on this rock in the park and it was fun, so I'd like to do more" and climbing Everest without a Sherpa.

However, inexperience and asking "dumb" questions (no such thing, and most of the gunblogging community are more than happy to answer questions and make clarifications for anyone who honestly wants information) is not the same thing as acting like an asshole. If you act like an asshole in meatspace, you get treated like an asshole, so why does anyone expect it to go any differently in blogland?

He also makes the point that the blogosphere locks people into the content on the blog... um, yeah, it's my blog. If I want to write about farting rainbows and dancing a jig on the grave of an unmarried protestant woman, I get to do that. I don't make anyone read what I write, they're free to click away any time they happen to get offended or bored, and go read someone else's drek, if my drek isn't a flavor to their liking.

But um... the only content on the site that I can see is his. There's one post on the main page by someone else, and since it's a welcome message I'm guessing they're on staff or were asked to write it. Other than that, it's all admin, all the time. So, you're sort of sitting on your own unlubed point there dude.

In fact, the only point I can see being proven is that the admin is an asshole, which I knew from the previous experience.

There's also a "protected" post on the site right now... it shows up on the front page and asks for a password. My site password will not let me into it.. so he's shutting out at least part of his users from content on the site. Is this how he's going to run the forums?

All in all I just can't see this project getting off the ground. He's going to get a lot of hits from being a douche as people do what I did and follow their curiosity, but I think it's going to fade into obscurity as the hullabaloo dies down and the people who get all the attention turn theirs elsewhere.

And that's what I think about that, in case you cared.

*Imbedded links from copy/paste removed. Thanks for the heads up.

*ETA: It appears that there isn't any way to delete the account. I'm hesitant to ask the administrator to remove it, because that would spoil my calculations on how much time it takes for him to molest the profile again. Ah well.

Coolest. Job. Evar.

So, I got a new job. I gotta say, it seemed like the same old same old until today when I discovered that I now have an awesome job.

See, I started working at a liquor store. Today, one of the distribution reps came in, and he had a couple of new things to try and sell the boss on.

Rep hauls in this bottle of bourbon, starts talking about price points and bulk deals, boss says "Can I open it?" Rep says "If you're going to sample it, go ahead. I haven't had a chance to yet either."

So the boss opens this higher-end bottle of bourbon and pours three little cups... probably a little less than a shot, and hands me one. Apparently, this is a fairly common practice when the reps start pushing a new liquor.

My first comment after tasting it was "Damn, now I have to spend sixty bucks on a bottle of bourbon."

This particular bourbon was from Peach Street Distillers. Not a new company, just new to this distributor, or getting a sales push, or whatever.

However it happened, I definitely got to benefit.

I'm looking forward to the reps getting more new stuff... and I hope I'm there when they come in!

Now I Need A Sham-Wow

To clean up the coffee I spewed across the living room this morning when I saw the new infomercial from Hooker-Beater-Boy.

So I'm sitting there sort of listening to the TV as I suck down my first cup of coffee of the morning and I hear his voice. I'm thinking "Oh the sham-wow shit is on again" but noooo he's shilling for some silicon super roller thingy.

Anyway about two minutes in he's talking about the mini one (and I'm looking for facial scars from his being whupped by a hooker) and suddenly he's standing in front of a wall with lines on it... using the mini thingy to roll lint off his shirt... with the dialogue: "And it's great for neatening up before those important photos..." and the camera pulls back.... and he's posed for a mug shot.

Ok if you have to be nationally known for getting a mudhole stomped in your ass by Shaniqua from the corner of Ninth and Main... when you come back to being an overly-caffeinated jackass selling utter crap on the TV... well, that's about the only way I can see to do it, frankly.

Memories

Saw an article today that got me to thinking about Mamaw.

See, she had a computer for... well, forever. She learned to do accounting on it, had the 3.5 floppy version of a graphics program to make signs. Later on, it was the repository of her photos, and solitaire. But then, I started blogging. After that, nothing would do but I bookmark my blog for her. After Blogorado I, the bookmarks were added to... everybody that attended.

SIL and I were talking about something funny someone had put up on Facebook one day, and then nothing was gonna stop her from having an account. She never posted, but she kept up with everyone else. She emailed and sent pictures, she haunted the Food Network website. She got a phone that would text, and she did, some.

Then she got a smartphone. She got it after we discovered the brain tumors, and she learned how to use it. She teased people with it. She could make it bark, and look up the weather. It took a lot of repetition and showing her, but she learned how to use it.

I was linking someone to a post on my blog the other day and stumbled across a comment she'd left.

I was going through some old photos and found some of her riding Etta.

We deleted her Facebook account, but still, because she was who she was, through the internet tribe that we built, through this blog, she left an electronic imprint on the world, in addition to the physical one.



The internet is forever. Thanks to the internet, she can be too. And that is an amazing thing.

New Year

As seems to happen often enough 2011 was full of ups and downs.Once again though, I think the year has left me a better person, better able to take what life throws at me and fastpitch it right back at the metaphorical dangly bits. In the end, I call that a win.

Bring it on 2012. I got this.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.2

Conspiracy!

From my own family no less! It appears that after a long streak of not being able, for one reason or another, to keep my presents a secret, Farmmom went to great lengths (even recruiting my boyfriend to blatantly lie to me about being an anxious weirdo in order to find out where exactly my gun was) to keep this one secret.

See, it seems that EvylRobot conspired with her too. He sent her some leather, she did some tooling, sent it back, and he made a holster out of it. Throughout all of this several people managed to keep it a secret from me.

The finished product is nice:






I was told I had to do a review, on top of being bamboozled by my dearly beloveds. What a world.

So far I'm impressed with the workmanship. Farmmom's tooling is great, the rose is one that I had admired a few times on a belt pattern (this is me sucking up to my mommy) and Robot's craftsmanship is good. There's gonna be a little fit adjustment as I wear the holster in... it's a little stiff to form to me where I prefer just yet, but the difference in position is about an inch, so it's not that huge a deal, as it breaks in a little I'll move it and it'll conform.

I like that the clips are reversible. I can wear it IWB or OWB and the swap is a couple of screws. The clips are also extremely sturdy and very much stay where they're put, which is a requirement. Also, I'm a big fan of where he put his logo. I don't mind advertising for him when I'm showing it off, but I like that it's covered when the gun is in the holster. It wouldn't work well with the rose on a full time basis.

It's pretty clear that Robot uses something with a texture as his backing when he works his leather.. there are some cross hatched markings on the back side of the leather, and an odd mottled texture behind his logo, all on the back, where it won't show, and will probably disappear with wear. Not a deal breaker on the holster, were I paying for it, but being as familiar as I am with leather and having a passing acquaintance with working leather, it's something I noticed.

I'll update more as I wear it and figure out how it's gonna break in. So far, in the adjusted position it's fairly comfortable, for a brand new holster about five times thicker than I'm used to, since my last holster for Walter was a floppy crappy thing.

I am very pleased with my sooper secret gift, though.

Merry Christmas Everybody

Here's hoping that all have a happy, safe, and loving time this holiday season.