I just read an interesting post over at the Bivings Report titled, Online Venom or Vibrant speech?, where author Todd Zeigler looked into a recent article on the Washington Post and examined a comment made about moderating comments on Post articles. It seems that the online edition of the newspaper gets some extremly rancorous and vicious comments.

Should there Be Complete Freedom of Speech Online?

I started thinking about the whole concept of commenting and realized that this takes place across the net including on other online newspapers, blogs, social networks (Digg, especially), etc. I know that I was quite taken back when I was the recipient of some pretty nasty comments on this blog. For a long time, I kept the comments in the moderation queue, but eventually decided that it was important to share all views, as long as they didn’t harm me or anyone else. In this and in most other cases I see, the commentor proved their ignorance by spewing hateful nonsense. On the other hand, however, had this comment taken it a step further, I would have never allowed it to see the light of day.

That said, I am amazed by all the hate that is posted online, especially in political sites like Politico and the Huffington Post. What happened to intellectual debate? Is our country so full of ignorance and hate that we are no longer capable of discussing heated topics without reverting to racist and other rants? I am saddened by this and fear that it will worsen as I have children and they grow up.

Back to moderating comments . . . .

Websites Should Absolutely Moderate their Comments

I think it is perfectly acceptable to moderate comments on forums, blogs, social sites, etc. so they comply with your personal or company goals. Why should someone have to put up with hateful comments on their personal blog? Why should a forum about cars put up with comments about sex? Why should political websites put up with people demeaning and insulting others?

They shouldn’t!

If people are incapable of posting well thought out and civil comments, why should they have a voice? All the types of sites I’ve mentioned are private property (in a public domain). Should the Washington Post allow racist and hateful posts? No! The Post is a private company with an image to uphold. I know I don’t want to read a bunch of nasty comments after viewing an article.

People talk about free speech, but fail to recognize that freedom of speech does not cover what a private enterprise can and should allow.

In case we’ve all forgotten the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere does it say that freedom of speech is protected in a private enterprise.

What do you think? Should newspapers, blogs, social networks, and other online media moderate the comments on their sites?

We’ve all seen them . . . new blogs with ads at every turn, with nothing to say other then “I make money online” and “I blog about my blog.” Typically, when I come across a site like this I leave and do not return. I realize that these sites offer nothing useful to me or anyone else . . . The sad fact is that thanks to different gimmicks out there, sites like these seem to becoming more and more popular every day.

You can’t really go through more than a handful of blogs these days without reading about making money online using Adsense, Chitika, BlogAds, AuctionAds, Text Link Ads, etc. The purpose of these sites is to push affiliate programs and ad networks without offering anything concrete to anyone except how they are becoming more popular by doing nothing. It seems like we’re in some kind of vicious cycle now:

The Vicious Cycle Started by Bloggers who Blog About Nothing But How to Make Money Online

1. Person sees that others are “making money online” with their blog (most fail to provide any proof and likely don’t make any money at all)
2. Person wants to make money with a blog of their own
3. Person sets up blog and claims to be a “money making” blogger
4. Person monetizes their blog as soon as possible, throwing up as many ads as possible
5. Person starts joining every blog train, meme, link exchange, favorite exchange, etc. to start building up their Technorati ranking, PR, feed subscribers, etc.
6. Person starts to blog about the same crap as every other blog about making money online (typically nothing . . . many of these sites just blog about the ads that they just put on their site and then just fill their site with all the crap mentioned in #5)
7. Person sees their site begin to become “popular” and starts to tell all their friends about their “success”. They then encourage their friends to start blogging. Amazed by how easy it sounds, these friends go to #1.

   Note: The site has actually not become popular at all. It is just another site that other sites have used to grow their own useless sites through blogging gimmicks. All the people who have added it as a favorite, as a subscribed feed, or as any other kind of “friend” fail to come back because the site really has nothing to offer, just like their own sites. A network of useless “popular” blogs begin to climb the charts with nothing to contribute to anything but their own existence.

8. Person realizes that they have nothing to offer the world other than a bunch of crap that has been repeated a thousand times before, yet continue to offer that crap because they are now actually making a few bucks a month.
9. Person begins to be seen as an authority by other newbies and actually begins to get real traction, despite having nothing to offer but the popularity of their site that has nothing to offer.
10. Sadly, eventually that person really begins to believe their own hype. Many times, this person still knows nothing about anything, yet offers their advice to others who are too green to know any better.
11. Bad advice follows bad advice and the internet becomes overwhealmed by people following the one guy with nothing to offer but a bunch of bad advice.
12. People who actually do have something to offer others, for some reason, start to follow the path set by these know nothing “authorities” and make their advice even more popular.
13. The entire internet goes down in flames as 1 billion people around the world are all doing the same thing trying to make money by doing nothing but blogging about blogging about making money online by saying a whole lot of nothing!

Pretty Scary, huh?!?

A few days ago I came upon a website called NO: Good Money Maker. What impressed me about the site was that it was a blog devoted to reviewing other blogs out there; the reviews were thoughtful, well-written, and comprehensive.

Cecil Lee, a blogger out of Malaysia, runs the site. I sent an email to request a review of this site, TimeforBlogging, and was very happy with what I saw! Cecil wrote a wonderful review of this blog. Take a look - it’s very good and I’m quite pleased.

If you’re at all interested in getting your blog or website reviewed thoroughly, stop by Cecil’s site and ask him for one. Let him know that you found out about him from me (I get no compensation . . . just wanted him to know I’m working to help him out).

Get your review today!

I saw this and had to share! This is an actual photo of a dust storm over Khartoum, the capital of Sudan in Africa. Click on the image for more information about the storm.

Photo Courtesy of the Daily Mail

. . . and I thought they were exaggerating in the movie, the Mummy!

This is where I jump out there and rant a bit about all the annoying crap going on today online! Care to join in?

On Making Money Online “Experts” . . .
I can’t believe all the “making money online” blogs out there. Most are from people who have never made any real money online. I think that anyone with a blog about making money online needs to prove their salt by showing everone how much they’ve actually made online. How are you going to give advice about making money online when you’ve never even made the bare minimum from any affiliate or ad program to get your first check?

On Website Copycats . . .
I can’t believe how many people think that by copying the strategies, design and content of other sites they will have instant success. People think that by simply stealing somone else’s ideas that they will somehow have a good site. It doesn’t work that way people! It is sad that we’ve become a world of drones, copying the few leaders out there who have the originality and imagination to actually do something individual and unique. Just because you see the top sites in your space doing something doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to see gains from doing it. Even the big boys do it . . . read my recent post on how MySpace has gone from the copied to the copycat with their MySpace News failure.

On Blogging Imitators . . .
I can’t believe the number of blogging imitators out there. It seems that John Chow is a favorite amongst the blogging bootleggers; John is an original, like him or not. It is unbelievable how many people have created blogs that simply copy what he does. I realize that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but re-read my first point on copycats.

On Every One Who Gives Online Advice About Something They Know Nothing About . . .
I was recently reading a blog where someone was trying to tell people how to run a successful forum. When pressed, they admitted that they were not currently and have not ever run any successful forums. How can you give advice on something you have no experience with?

The problem we all face now is that anyone can give advice. Before listening to anyone out there, find out a bit about them. Ask about their experience. Do they really know what the hell they are talking about?

The best is reading many of the websmaster forums out there where people are offering help to others when they are in no position to be doing so . . . e.g. I saw a thread where someone admitted getting only a handful of visitors per day, yet their signature said something like “get tons of website visitors” and their link went to a new, empty directory site.

On People With No Common Sense or Basic Netiquette . . .
This is my finaly rant of the day. I’m shocked that in this day and age people:

• Still think it is okay to POST IN ALL CAPS IN FORUMS

• Still post their link in blog comments
• Still send business emails with no contact information or signature, just their name
• Still think I’m going to do business with them after the send repeated, unsolicited, SPAM
• Still think I’m going to link to their completely unrelated and haphazardly thrown together website
• Still think I’ll do business or ever work with them after they insult me publicly (yes, I have only one person in mind here)
• Still think it is okay to sell CDs or DVDs online and then charge $9.99 for S&H

Ok . . . I’m tired of ranting. I feel much better!

I guess this post is best summed up by the following:

Care to extend the rant? (Is this post meme-worthy?)

I was just thinking about how practically everyone these days has a blog. Be it a company or individual, blogs are now an engrained part of our lives. With that in mind, I found myself humming a song from my past, “The Log Song“, from Ren & Stimpy. Wouldn’t it just be a perfect piece of linkbait if someone turned this song & cartoon into a piece about blogs? (Note: if someone does take this idea, don’t forget who came up with it!)

The New Lyrics

It’s Blog, Blog, it’s its fun addictive and ‘hood!
It’s Blog, Blog, it’s better than bad, it’s good!
Everyone wants a blog! You’re gonna love it, Blog!
Come on and get your blog! Everyone needs a Blog!”

I just don’t know what companies are thinking these days.

How Chase Bank Has Forgotten About the Customer

I had a call into Chase about an issue with my credit card the other night and couldn’t believe what I heard. My discussion with a customer service representative was not going where I wanted it to, so I asked to talk to a supervisor. I was told that there was no supervisor to talk to, but if I wanted to, I could just give her my number and she’d have someone call me back. I found this to be quite interesting (no supervisor? come on!) and tried to reason with the rep to have someone with any authority get on the phone, but got the same thing . . . nothing.

From there, I went on to tell her that I was a loyal customer for around 13 years and was just not happy with the service I was getting. Want to hear the response?

“If you’re not happy, then I’ll close your account for you right now”

Really?!?

“I just told you I was a loyal customer for 13 years and you’re telling me to close my account if I’m not happy?”

“Yes, sir. Do you want me to close it?”

(I took notes, because I was so surprised by this response)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think companies are in business to chase away their customers, do you? Somewhat stunned, I got off the phone and waited for morning to call back and talk to a supervisor. When I got on the phone with a supervisor (after telling the customer service rep I was calling about bad service), it happened again! I explained that I was not happy with the service I recevied and was almost instantly told that if I wasn’t happy then she would close my account . . . she almost begged me to do so.

In a daze, I laughed and asked if this was a big joke. It was not. Not only was it surprising in content, but in tone as well; she was simply nasty to me. I was told that the company now had a policy which requires customer service and their supervisors to close someone’s account if they don’t like the service they are getting.

Apparently, Chase has established a policy where they send away people who aren’t happy with their service. There is no attempt to rectify the situation. They just want you, the problem, to get lost.

Why waste their time keeping someone happy? There are plenty of other customers to rip off on both ends of banking (low savings interest rates and high borrowing interest rates).

With this situation in mind, I’m asking you to boycott Chase. It is the customer that comes first, and if they are too lazy to give good service, then they don’t deserve to have any customers, plain and simple.

What Can We Learn From This Situation?

Customer service is Paramount! If you treat your customers like crap, there will be a backlash against you, especially in the days of the internet. If you treat them well, they will tell their friends and you will only see positive results! With so much choice (except when it comes to cable TV & telephone providers), we, the consumer, have the power to not only choose another, better, option, but also to tell the rest of the world of our experiences.