ESCAPE VELOCITY

1 - Can I set up a redirection service for you? Now, that would be annoying.

2 - Is you picture implying Kings and Queens are bad ? We take our Royalty very seriously in England, and when the colonies get back in line you will realise this

3 - Oh. Like I've been banished from edbrill.com

Oh. Isnt that annoying.

---* Bill

4 - Yes it is Bill. Do you mean your email is deleted, your IP is blocked from the site and your links are redirected?

5 - Meh, banishing schmanishing. I was being barred from certain high-profile Domino sites before most of you HAD your own websites, so ner (OK, not you Bill ).

Do I win a prize?

6 - @3 - Bill, if it were in my power to unbanish you from edbrill.com, I would. That definitely sucks. You are a tremendous contributor to the Yellowverse.

@5 - What sites? And were you barred because you violated terms of service? Or simply in the grand tradition of suppressing dissent? I'm very curious. After all, we victims of censorship should stick together.

7 - funny - all the links worked for me. Bit counterproductive though if you're going to make him out to be trolling for link traffic - maybe google or coral cache would be a better call?

8 - I have no idea what Wild Bill is talking about and am mildly offended that I'm being compared to this behaviour. Bill, will follow up in e-mail.

9 - @6 I am shocked that you would think I would violate a site's ToS. I was banished because the site owner didn't want me on his sites. As is his right to ask. I am no victim, and I don't harp on about it either.

@7 The idea that vowe.net needs traffic is laughable, a cursory view of the stats there would demonstrate that.

10 - I enjoy your blog Nathan, you're a smart guy that I look up to from afar. But you're doing yourself an injustice by name calling and posting the above image.

Re censorship; if high vis Lotus bloggers can do it, why can't Volker?

11 - @9 - Ben, you offered no explanation at all, so how could a person ascertain the context of your being barred from a site without asking? I am equally shocked that anyone involved in Domino felt the need to shut out your voice for no other reason than it's yours -- so I was asking if there was some motive you hadn't mentioned.

"and I don't harp on about it either."

But you just did. You even asked whether you won a prize.

@10 - Thanks for the kind words. I feel perfectly content with the service I do myself and others in calling a spade a spade.

What "high vis Lotus blogger" censors authentic feedback? The only time I can think of that any blogger besides vowe removed content is when the author refused to identify themselves with an email address.

In any case, we're not just talking refusal to accept comments with "nathan.freeman@lotus911.com" in the email return. Volker also violates basic hypertext standards by refusing to properly display deep-linked pages if the referer comes from my site. This { Link } is not a link to the vowe.net homepage. But if you click it while reading this comment, that's where you'll go.

Volker is free, of course, to put any terms he wants on the use of his site. And I am free to call him a coward who sits in fear that his audience might someday discover just what kind of person he really is.

You are free, on this site at least, to offer me any feedback you care to. You won't find me quivering behind filter rules.

12 - just in case the insinuation of "high vis Lotus bloggers" is to concur with Bill, I've not banned anyone from my site, don't block IPs other than known spammers, and only delete anonymous comments (as has been my policy for years).

13 - Nope Ed, to your credit I wasn't insinuating it was you (even if I might wish that you would erase a recent comment). Look, no-one here knows me from a bar of soap and I can't back up my claim so I'm not going to mention names. And yes my comments were negative so maybe I deserved it? I can't decide given all the recent debate.

14 - @9 - Ben nice of you to mention the stats. Can you explain how a hit with a referer from www.lotus911.com/nathan is counted, is it a hit to the page linked, a hit to homepage, both or is just not counted?

15 - @14 can I explain? No. I don't run vowe.net.

Nathan said, You won't find me quivering behind filter rules.

Well, no. I don't think anyone does that do they? Sounds a bit wet to me.

The thing I find extraordinary about this site is how many times we get these posts and the resulting comment-fests (of course, in that regard I'm as much to blame as the next man). If you like a site, hey, just read it, no-one will blame / condemn / ridicule you. Really.

On the other hand, you are sure to find plenty of sites that displease you. So feel free to ignore them. After all, life is too short to argue on the internet (The irony is not lost, don't fret).

Clearly Nathan, you don't like what Volker writes, nor do you care for how he writes it and the subsequent "censorship" on his site. Fair enough! Each to his own.

So hey, why not ignore said site instead of writing upwards of ten posts per year about it?

16 - @Ben - "Well, no. I don't think anyone does that do they? Sounds a bit wet to me."

As Nathan pointed out, if you click on one of the direct links to the "blog" in question, you'll see that you are redirected to the main website instead of the direct link. If you CTRL-Click the link, you will go to the proper link since it doesn't use the referrer. So, yes someone does that. Also, I can vouch for the fact that we cannot get to the website from our office network...

17 - @15 - If you like a site, hey, just read it, no-one will blame / condemn / ridicule you. Really... life is too short to argue on the internet

Ben, you really, truly, completely missed the point of this { Link }

That saddens me.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised any longer at the online community's willingness to undermine whatever level of success that Lotus achieves, but darnit... my sense of basic human rationality just keeps getting the best of me. I keep thinking that if you explain to people that they are preventing their own success, they might say "thank you" instead of offering cliches like "to each his own."

@16 - Ben's probably more like questioning my use of the term "quivering" then whether there actually are filter rules. I think he disagrees with the notion that deleting comments instead of responding to them is an act of cowardice.

18 - I keep thinking that if you explain to people that they are preventing their own success, they might say "thank you" instead of offering cliches like "to each his own."

Now it's my turn to say "Oh puh-lease". I'm not missing the point: I know exactly what you're saying in your various posts, I just don't agree. I don't get the hero complex, the chest-thumping, the guff about vowe.net and whoever else undermining The True Cause. Talk about cliché. It just smacks of patronising silliness to me, sorry.

Oh, and success? I wasn't aware I was failing. But thanks for enlightening me

19 - @15 Ben, sorry, somehow this:

"a cursory view of the stats there would demonstrate that."

led me to believe you had access to the stats, that's why I asked.

20 - @18 - You absolutely missed the point, Ben. Because I'm pointing out that SOME CUSTOMER is blaming you for the sites you read and comment on. That's the wonder of Peter's original comment, man. There's no longer a question of "does this constant dogpiling and "me too"ism have a detrimental affect on the market. The evidence is in your face.

If you weren't part of the dog { Link } pound { Link } the point wouldn't apply to you, would it?

I mean, seriously... resolve your statements in those two threads. 'Cause I see one that says "I agree that the Notes market in the UK is the worst I've seen" and a later one that goes "let's trumpet out a Microsoft Exchange win." HELLO!??!?!

Social software is an awesome amplifier of signals. And when the signals that Yellowbleeders give off is "our time is over" then guess what? You're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stop being part of the problem. You don't have to cheer if that's not your thing. Just don't join in the jeering against your benefactor.

21 - The problem is certain people telling others what to do. Get over yourselves.

22 - Oh. Just returned to this thread after a long pause. Oh - it certainly kicked off in here didnt it ?

Love the line: "Stop being part of the problem. You don't have to cheer if that's not your thing. Just don't join in the jeering against your benefactor."

Benefactor ? I helped set up the European cc:Mail User Group in the early nineties, and have been in close touch with IBM since then, in terms of being (mostly a premier) business partner, consultant and of course ISV. I would never call any large company a benefactor.

And you said all this to Ben Poole. Wow. Ben Poole who has contributed soooo much to this community, and is generally regarded as one of the nicest guys around ? And now you're conducting a flame war on his blog thread too ?

Nathan. Honestly. Cut back on the caffeine. It doesnt do you any good.

And when you can see the irony of the statement I've made COMING FROM ME, then your on the road to recovery.

Till then, wny not wind in the abuse.. ?

I mean. I had the pleasure of meeting you and your very beautiful wife, and I understand that you now live in vegas - the Attention Deficit Disorder capital of America. And yet you choose to fill your free time with this ? Is that 5 or 6 THOUSAND words on this issue since last week ?

---* Bill

(Ed did indeed kindly get in touch via mail. My link was removed for three days after I made some particularly insulting remarks about IBM marketing. )

23 - @22 - Bill, I don't know how you define "flame war," but if my reply on Ben's blog meets that criteria, I think it might make sense to reexamine it.

And I live in the Atlanta area, not Vegas.

I really think you're confusing me with someone else. Lately, all our communication seems to suggest that.