Thursday, May 17, 2007

Internet vigilante....surprised that I know one....

The internet policeThere is a person I became acquainted almost two years ago while blogging on MSN Spaces, someone who I became very fond of personally and came to admire very much in his chosen profession of author. I admired him so much in fact, that I dedicated a great deal of time and resources to the cause of getting his writing exposure, hopefully with the culmination of garnering him a publication contract. He has worked diligently to reach his goal and the story is that the heart and soul of his writing is the truths he has learned in his very difficult personal journey through life...the nature of the tale he has spun is the process that a person goes through to learn life lessons...and how that all changes you.

He has for some time used his MSN Space as a vehicle for his web presence. This is where I first encountered his work and got to know him, and where he has successfully built a small entourage of loyal followers of his progress. He has posted his works in progress there for folks to critique and peruse; supposedly without concern for space traffic or kudos....simply for the satisfaction of writing for himself.

Not long after we became acquainted with each other, MSN introduced a type of recognition that they were to bestow on the "Best of Spaces", to call out some really fine efforts of folks dedicating time to building a site and creating a network on MSN's Spaces community. The concept sounds good...recognition for quality and engaging content....it was however an obvious popularity contest, largely based on a user's ability to team build and generate traffic. Some users were very good at it and were awarded "Best of Spaces" multiple times...other spaces that were deserving but not highly traveled were slighted. The popular sites and their creators became the MSN celebrities, and they were being contacted by lots of folks who wanted to jump on the popularity bandwagon...coat-tail on the traffic...channel a little of the success their way by association...As a result, some of the "popular" bloggers got a little overly self-important and full of themselves...to the point of believing their press...how great they are...and in demand...and they started to act that way, trying to see how far the perks of being popular would get them (sound like a pretty old predicament?)

Some of the followers of the "Populars" knew what they were getting into and were OK with it...some others were naive and had no idea what was going on...still others were sucked in, then after the fact decided to be angry or indignant at the way they were treated...admittedly some of the contact was not proper, but for the most part a delete, disconnect or ignore would have protected them, but they decided not to do those things. This is where the whole thing gets bizarre and out of hand....some of these folks are "friends" of the person I know, and recounted I have no idea what, in I have no idea what context, to him. For reasons I really don't understand, he decided to take up a crusade, based on what he had heard, to right the wrongs, make a point or something else entirely. The details of this crusade, in his own words are available here (Diary of "Jane"), so I will not enumerate the details. I read this article myself just this morning...here are my reactions, in no particular order:

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- so...even if you can rationalize "good intentions", is it ethical to intentionally deceive people to PROVE A POINT?

- the condescending "I knew it all along" attitude; is it really that great to be RIGHT?

- a "take down"..... and based on the heresay of your own network of internet "friends"...ever think that they were protecting their own reputations with YOU?

- Your own experiment is an interesting lesson in gullibility and internet deception

and finally....

- With this in mind, how manipulative and contrived are your other ventures?

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This has been weighing heavy on my mind all day...the investment of time, money and effort I have made over the past nearly two years to quietly and loyally support this friend in his efforts may very possibly been totally rendered useless by this "experiment" and his disclosure of same. I am disheartened at this vigilante approach to proving a point...for me the only point it proved is that anyone can be deceptive and everyone can be deceived....

With a heavy heart I close tonight....still with much love to you....

v