Am I taking it too seriously?

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Well, am I? Shouldn't I remain aloof and detached from this sort of undignified kerfuffle, kind of like the Queen Mother...?

-- Nicholas E. Grinder (me@impolex.demon.co.uk), July 26, 2000

Answers

I am surprised that you blew your cool over this -- it seemed to me that you were less upset by two-hour rail delays on the way home from Dundee than by the squabble at xeney's forum. Why DO you care so much, if you don't mind my asking?

-- Tom Dean (tsd@ogk.com), July 26, 2000.

I ask the questions here....

But I think it's because, as much as I try to be my own man and avoid participating in the online diary mainstream, I was involved when the whole thing started up (my Open Pages ID number is 4 if you want to show some reverence) and can't help but feel pangs of paternal unease about what it's growing into. It's a bit like watching your beautiful, creative, socialist daughter turn into a corporate accountant....



-- Nicholas E. Grinder (me@impolex.demon.co.uk), July 26, 2000.


I work for a law firm that has bought any number of dot coms for our various venture capital clients. I'm on the other side of the firm, suing and getting sued when deals go wrong, so I personally haven't seen much of the dot coms yet -- just wait until next year, I expect.

That's to say, I have always seen the Web as something to enjoy now when it's free, because in a very short time it's going to be extremely commercial. I expect xeney to turn into a for-profit site, because that's the genesis of a lot of the early for-profit dot coms. iVillage came out of a personal page (and -- attention, Netrepreneurs! -- we represented it in one of its first rounds of financing). As security concerns grow and profit expectations rise, traffic on the Web will be more and more restricted and channeled, molded by the profit motive.

I see it as the regrettable certainty, the encroachment of commerce onto the Web. It's a shame your daughter became an accountant, Grinder. But you knew she couldn't stay a kid forever. I'm not unsympathetic to your complaint, though.

-- Tom Dean (td@ogk.com), July 26, 2000.


No, I don't think you're taking it too seriously.

I, for one, wouldn't pay to read an online diary. I have to admit that I have had a look at the sites, but they didn't hold my attention.

I don't think a free journal/diary website is "inferior" to one which is asking for payment either. In fact I think I would have more respect for someone who kept their diary free.

-- Zephrine (zephrine@surf4nix.com), July 26, 2000.


I equate the "donate" buttons to pan-handling. The writers of these journals keep insisting that gee, you don't have to pay if you don't want to, BUT....

We should call it what it is: greed and pretentiousness.

I CHOSE to put my journal online, I CHOSE to buy my domain. Nobody put a damn gun to my head. If I don't like shelling out the money and sharing my online diary with people for free, I should take it down. It's that simple.

Partly Cloudy Forever Free!

-- Tamara (tamthor@hotmail.com), July 27, 2000.



yes, you might be taking it too seriously, Nicholas...who cares what other lesser journallers do? Surely not one, such as yourself, aloof from all of that mainstream popular journal twaddle?

However, as a long term, non-sycophantic journal reader (...I've been silently following your adventures for years, old chap, feeling no need to write in and offer advice/say how marvellous you are/ask for a lock of hair etc...) I too feel revulsion for the pay to donate button.The banners bother me far less...there is less of a guilting people into contributing feel about it.

My feeling is that on-line journals are mostly self indulgent exercises in narcissism. Some transcend this and are well written and entertaining as well but I will never pay for the privilege of reading one. The pay off for the on-line journaler is in having a readership. I expect them to feel pleased when they notice their hits go up or receive a fawning email!

If my reading about someones cinema outings/pets/ temper tantrums/flame wars etc is just too much of a financial burden for individuals to bear then I am happy to help out by not reading them.

And incidentally...since I have just outed myself as a long time reader... please accept my belated congratulations to you & your lovely wife on your recent wedding. I hope & have the impression from reading your journal(for what thats worth) that you will be very happy.

-- AJR (ajr_nz@hotmail.com), July 27, 2000.


Hey, if the silly prats want to part with their cash...should 'we' really care?

Commercialisation of the web is inevitable. The web and every damned thing that people can get their money hungry hands on. Hell, if my grandmother lives long enough 'they' will probably commercialise her as well.

Zeitgeist, n. German. The spirit of the time; the general inclination of thought or feeling characterisitc of a particular period of time.

So let the Lemmings get pushed off the cliff by Disney film crews. Swim against the tide of the plug-hole swirl and keep telling the Jehovah's Witnesses, "Sorry, not today"

Donate buttons, I don't scare that easy.

Yours truely

Just another corporate accountant

-- James Ferguson (jamestax@xtra.co.nz), July 28, 2000.


Do I think you care too much? No, because I don't think you really care. But as a great source of spewing at the ignorant masses and their tasteless sycophants - I think you are spot-on.

I went and took a look at the works in question and my reaction was a mixture of sadness at the total lack of taste and imagination and glee at the tackiness of it all. Shilling for pennies.

It is tempting to remain aloof and smugly superior, but sometimes you it's simply fun to roll in the mud a little.

Bill

-- Bill Chance (chancew1@aol.com), July 28, 2000.


Good on ya, Bill Chance!!! Mud is fun!

-- Cabana (cluchase@earthlink.net), July 30, 2000.

In hindsight I do think there's been a lot of over-reaction on both sides of this argument. But as the last two posts have said, it's sometimes a heap of fun to jump on the battling bandwagon and join in the fight. Beth gets money, the "keep it free" folks get the chance to be holier-than-thou and everyone gets to vent their accumulated grudges. But I don't really think there's anything left to add at this stage....

-- Nicholas E. Grinder (me@impolex.demon.co.uk), July 31, 2000.


Interesting discussion. If I'd known that I had the power to up and singlehanded destroy the sanctity of the online writing community with a donation button, I would have used those powers to fight for the Forces of Good, not Evil. Alas, as we all know, once you start down the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate you. Perhaps it was... my destiny.

In any case, if I'd known that the reaction would have been as extreme as it has been, if I'd known I was going to see posts and such by people who I thought of as friends saying nasty shit about me in public forums like this, I probably wouldn't have done it. I'm not a glutton for punishment.

But as I've stated elsewhere, one thing I would continue to do is receive gifts and donations from readers on their own terms. Giving them a venue in which to do it, in a way that I can use to make my site a better place, that was my intent. As I stated on my site, this was an option aimed at the most hardcore readers, the people who have been doing this all along.

I've "peed in the pool" for the rest of you? That's an astonishing accomplishment, especially considering that Mr. Grinder himself has admitted that he doesn't read me. I can't imagine how what I choose to do on my own site effects anyone else. If you've got your own voice and your own particular niche fingured out, as you clearly do, then I can't imagine why you'd give two shits about what I do on my site.

I made a choice to put a donation button on my site. Some of you have chosen to respond to that with ugliness and hate. To each his own.

-- Rob Rummel-Hudson (rhudson@digitalism.com), July 31, 2000.


Hum. Since I am a jobbing writer, my attitude towards this trend has been, "If they actually get money from this dodge, bless 'em." I don't think the amount of money is going to come to much, certainly not enough to give up the day job and start putting "On-Line Journal Writer" on your tax forms, but if there are people out there who are happy (and who have the extra dosh) to contribute to their favorite OLJ writer's beer fund, who am I to say nay?

However, I don't do it myself because I write the journal for fun, for therapy, and for base self-aggrandizement. Considering my reader base, I'm just kidding myself on the last bit, but in all seriousness I wouldn't put my pay work on a freely available website anyway. It's much too easy to lose control of it -- yes, copyright extends to any work you put on the web, but the law is still dragging its collective feet on effective prosecution. As it stands, any bozoid can come along and grab chunks of it for their own twisted use (something which happened to me recently and has had wistful images of copyright lawyers dancing through my head), and if they claim that they paid you for it by contributing to your beer fund, it could potentially screw up rights issues (sample horror story -- a self-styled "editor" contributes to a journaler's fund, then grabs assorted entries and publishes them on the basis that the journaler was paid for the work and the editor can now do what he likes with it. All future revenues for reprints, electronic media, etc. could potentially go to the editor, not the journaler. Don't scoff -- it's been done before, and by "respectable" publishers). From a purely venal point of view, it's safer to accept that your internet work is there purely for enjoyment purposes, and start submitting stuff that could actually make money to the appropriate sources.

MMF

-- Melanie Fletcher (xanadu1@ibm.net), August 03, 2000.


There seems to be some delusions of grandeur afoot in the OLJ "community". First, requests for payment, and recently, a spate of logoed items. Who's paying $12 for an OLJ'ers coffee mug??

-- Joy Rothke (jrothke@earthlink.net), August 04, 2000.

You know why I haven't paid money for a journaler mug at CafePress? I hate the graphics everyone's chosen, by and large. If I'm going to fork out that much please god let it be an attractive vehicle for caffeine!

-- Lucy Huntzinger (huntzinger@mindspring.com), August 08, 2000.

You have no responsibility to remain as aloof as the Queen Mum unless you're also drinking a pint of gin every few hours.

P.S... Yours _is_ the only diary I read on a regular basis. That could be on account of the naked alphabets and pin-up girls though.

-- Rachael Stein (missrachael42@yahoo.com), August 08, 2000.



Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the general populace.

I think it's quite pathetic, but the pathetic thing about pathetic people is that they never know they're pathetic. It takes more discerning minds like ours, my fellow Grinderites, to recognize their patheticicity.

-- June Quotemangler (yousaytomato@hotmail.com/), August 10, 2000.


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