The obvious sign of someone playing a game against you is that the person switches from adult-to-adult, parent-to-parent, or child-to-child exchanges, like Mickey turned himself into a parent and tried to force me into the role of a child after I initiated an adult-to-adult conversation.
I only engaged because I wanted him to show his true face, which he did.
I try to insert links to other people's work, but they hardly ever convey my points of view, so it's hard to do it. (I do have a few stock links, though, from authors whose materials taught me something important.
Friends that I met up with recently after not seeing them for 8 months or more know of Substack and view it as a right wing platform. They didn't know that I was on Substack (and anyway know to keep away from me online due to the 'association' with someone who upsets those who could harm them). Nevertheless they seem to use Substack for information but tend to follow all the big guys like Del & Steve & Glenn etc etc.
It's a difficult thing to both promote your Substack here and not be thought of as interloping into somebody else's Substack. When I first started mine there was somebody doing that quite a lot and then there was me who did it seldom. We started off on the same number of subscribers of course and after several months we were still around the same, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But now said Substacker is well ahead of me, in the thousands while I'm struggling to 700.
So if you want the subscribers I guess you'll have to take the flak. I think that we should all not bother worrying about it, or personalities, and just get on with fixing the dystopia that the dystopians are trying to level on us.
Thank you for your reasonable and realistic approach. If I praised the big ones that are forced to be compromised, I would have a lot more subscribers, but my integrity is worth more. I can lose my credibility only once. After eight months, I am finally over a thousand, but my daily traffic is usually twice or three times that much and four to ten times higher than the number of subscribers opening my articles.
I'm not so worried about promoting my site, but the fact that people are being constantly duped and they even think they are smart or independent thinkers...
My daily traffic was higher than the local paper for about a week during the election. But apparently that didn't translate to votes. Nor did the fact that my video interview with Pat Brittendon was the 2nd most viewed of 12 mayoral candidates. Only good enough to come 10 out of 12 apparently.
On the internet no one needs to be anyone but the mood and moment. He does not strike me as any category specifically. He has his trip. He likes it. He may be similar but not interested in dialogue per se. Clearly he feels though you are too self referential. Possibly he may view you as self promoting. Possibly ego bound.
I am reading fear of competition and his loss of subscribers to you. But that comes mixed with some jealousy and envy. He admires your intellect, yet he then goes on to make comparisons by judging himself. There is a bit of projection on his part, he adjusts by pushing you away to maintain a little distance in service to his ego.
Or he just had a bad day, who knows... The strange part is that I honestly believe that small authors must complement each other in order to reach a considerable number of readers.
I suppose it was inevitable that SS would be ruined at some point. The mere thought that we could find a site the allowed authors unfettered publication rights (within reason, or course) is turning out to be a panacea. TPTB simply could not allow this site to thrive. Sadly, for me, I don't have a place to retreat to to find uncensored information. Given that SS is now about to be ruined to the point that talented authors and dedicated readers will find it an untenable place to find information, I think we have reached the point where we need to cancel all subscriptions and visit authors "manually" if we want to see what's going on. Nothing good lasts forever. Bye bye Substack.
The attack on SS is now quite overwhelming and, as far as I can see, it is happening through the comment sections; trolls and bots are employed to turn the comments unreadable.
Vastly-popular authors, as usual, cannot afford to be completely independent, but they still publish valuable information:
Authors, whose readership is only a few thousand are not forced to become compromised, although some of them are inevitably organized opposition.
Information is rapidly disappearing from the Internet, too, and popular search engines truncate their results to a few dozen officially-approved sites, so even the current SS is better than nothing.
My immediate subjective gut reaction is he thinks you are "tooting your own horn all the time". Of course, l don't agree with that. But l think you annoy him. You make him feel inferior. Too bad. He needs to grow up.
If he doesn't want your valuable participation & your links to your SS posts in his comment section then let him block you. His loss. You can't please everyone, Ray.
With a limited view of what has transpired here, I would guess that one person has a strongly different view of putting their published links on other publisher's site. For example one may believe some sort of informal permission should be obtained, while the other may think it is an economic way of getting more information out to other readers and should be part of the substack culture. That practice could be what is considered spamming another substack comment section by some number of people, maybe you do this more often than other publishers. I don't mind seeing those links myself as I have a choice to click to the additional content, but to each their own preference. That trend with people getting quickly intolerant with others is starting to be noticeable. They might be sending out those aggression frequencies lately if you know what I mean.
Spamming only occurs if the links posted have nothing to do with the original post, wouldn't you say? Otherwise, links are meant to be complementary contributions to the discussions in comment sections. Occasionally, I myself wish I had links instead of two-page-long comments by commenters. :)
As trolling has become quite abominable in the last few weeks, I can also see why authors are losing patience. For me, it was a four-day-long experience, and I tried to warn my fellow authors about the new smart troll:
By now, I know how it works, so I don't see ghosts, but I eliminate trolls as soon as I can ascertain they are trolls, and it usually doesn't take long.
I almost made the decision to quit commenting and/or replying to replies after 'the 'mark and markus show'. While I can hold my own in any honest discussion or sincere debates on divergent viewpoints, the personal assaults take a lot of time and energy to address. I value substack, but the other methods for freely expressing everyone's perceptions without fear of censorship has to be weighed against the amount of time involved in the fortitude of standing ones ground when the digs and insults are so out of place with the character of the platform.
It took me seven months to ban the first person, Mark. Marcus happily vanished, but I would have banned him, too. I banned the next troll only after a single comment (I recognized him from several months before). Another person I had to ban was the last one for crude language and personal attacks. I hope, it's not going to happen anytime soon, because I realized these trolls' main purpose is to make the comment sections unreadable.
Of course, trolls do a lot more than that.
Here is a good guide to trolls from The-Crypto-Rationalist:
This is good to know that you took this action. Now, I feel it's safe to go back into the water again since you handled the sharks in our midst. I didn't realize until now that you banned them. I stand relieved.
I was trying to be nice, flexible, and understanding. It drained me down and it disn't work. I am glad that well-meaning readers (who never have to agree with me) can now use the space again.
Yes I agree, you aren't selling viagra in your links, it isn't spam. There are intel and military servants that are from other governments if not our own that are actively keeping the infighting and paranoia at adequate levels. I hope they all wake up to the reality of what they are ushering in and understand they will be total digital slaves to the bankers if this succeeds.
At one point, I also mixed up infantile commenter behavior with trolling. :)
As the results are the same (turning comment sections unreadable; they are the places for forming communities, and a lot of valuable information is shared there), I move in a lot faster than I used to.
Sometimes these conversations are so hard to have in this kind of text /comment format, and things get taken out of context. I can see what he means when you said "on the same team" is a form of manipulation, but I don't think this is what you were doing of course. His fears might have gotten the best of him. Hope you can get some resolution Ray.
Nothing is taken out of context here, Roman. On the same team is openly referring to "liberating minds." What's manipulative about that? I don't get it.
It's okay, in fact, I don't really care on my own, but I do care for my readers/fellow authors' opinion. The responsibility for my decisions still remains mine. :)
I hear you. I just think that the barrier created by the computer gives people more balls than they would have normally. Would be great if you could just call the guy and talk. But it's probably way past that now. Anyways, I support you Ray, and wish you well. Thanks for posting my stuff too!
My thing: I'm not into having conflicts with any of the authors where I comment. Occasionally I disagree, but I have quite a tendency to enjoy reading people whom I basically agree with but who add to my knowledge. So if someone didn't want me to post links, I wouldn't. But I'm all in favor of you doing what it feels right for you to do. The argument basically feels irrelevant to me. I care about the content of what you say - and of what I say.
On my end, I have always appreciated when people found my work helpful, but I didn't consider that a sign or proof of my accomplishment.
Also, I tend to learn from people who disagree with me more, and I also try to stay on good terms with them, which they do not always accept. Beyond that, I don't care; I cannot be loved by everyone. Nobody can, but at least, I can retain my personal integrity.
Obviously, I don't want to burden anyone, either. I asked Mickey if he wanted me to stop posting, but his response was not straightforward, which resulted in my current post.
You and I fully agree that the argument makes no difference to our work. Still, I am somewhat curious what brought it about. Of course, I have my own opinion, but I'm wondering what my readers/fellow authors think.
Your questionnaire, to be fair, lacks a key option : “none of the above”. Followed, if you are inclined with the opportunity to offer a brief explanation. As things stand you only offer negative responses. From my reading you are both being a little snippy. It’s a no score draw Ray. IMO.
Fair enough. Once you leave alternative opinions, I will add them to the final result, but you have to do that before the poll ends. :)
So, what do YOU think? What do you mean by "snippy"? I believe, my policies have always been the same, so there is nothing "snippy" about them, but I might be wrong.
That's exactly why I thought my work would complement his. I guess, he is right that I can't and I was wrong about that. I won't bother him in the future.
Seemed he had a problem. Suggest very short!! replies.
Eg. You always link to your work.
Answer: yes.
His reply...you need to...(chastising you).
Answer: my page, my style
Don't explain, don't engage.
BUT, you CAN say to him,
If you want to link others, I appreciate it.
I cover my own things.
PS...takes A LOT of time to find, collate others.
Meanwhile, thanks, great work.
Do you have to get permission to quote others?
If not, find someone similar, put one in.
THERE.
The obvious sign of someone playing a game against you is that the person switches from adult-to-adult, parent-to-parent, or child-to-child exchanges, like Mickey turned himself into a parent and tried to force me into the role of a child after I initiated an adult-to-adult conversation.
I only engaged because I wanted him to show his true face, which he did.
I try to insert links to other people's work, but they hardly ever convey my points of view, so it's hard to do it. (I do have a few stock links, though, from authors whose materials taught me something important.
Friends that I met up with recently after not seeing them for 8 months or more know of Substack and view it as a right wing platform. They didn't know that I was on Substack (and anyway know to keep away from me online due to the 'association' with someone who upsets those who could harm them). Nevertheless they seem to use Substack for information but tend to follow all the big guys like Del & Steve & Glenn etc etc.
It's a difficult thing to both promote your Substack here and not be thought of as interloping into somebody else's Substack. When I first started mine there was somebody doing that quite a lot and then there was me who did it seldom. We started off on the same number of subscribers of course and after several months we were still around the same, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But now said Substacker is well ahead of me, in the thousands while I'm struggling to 700.
So if you want the subscribers I guess you'll have to take the flak. I think that we should all not bother worrying about it, or personalities, and just get on with fixing the dystopia that the dystopians are trying to level on us.
Thank you for your reasonable and realistic approach. If I praised the big ones that are forced to be compromised, I would have a lot more subscribers, but my integrity is worth more. I can lose my credibility only once. After eight months, I am finally over a thousand, but my daily traffic is usually twice or three times that much and four to ten times higher than the number of subscribers opening my articles.
I'm not so worried about promoting my site, but the fact that people are being constantly duped and they even think they are smart or independent thinkers...
My daily traffic was higher than the local paper for about a week during the election. But apparently that didn't translate to votes. Nor did the fact that my video interview with Pat Brittendon was the 2nd most viewed of 12 mayoral candidates. Only good enough to come 10 out of 12 apparently.
BTW I can't click on your poll because I think it's just a case of differences of opinion.
Yes, I made the mistake of not entering a fifth option, "Something else."
On the internet no one needs to be anyone but the mood and moment. He does not strike me as any category specifically. He has his trip. He likes it. He may be similar but not interested in dialogue per se. Clearly he feels though you are too self referential. Possibly he may view you as self promoting. Possibly ego bound.
That's what he said.
I am reading fear of competition and his loss of subscribers to you. But that comes mixed with some jealousy and envy. He admires your intellect, yet he then goes on to make comparisons by judging himself. There is a bit of projection on his part, he adjusts by pushing you away to maintain a little distance in service to his ego.
Bingo !!!! Lynn Ferguson, I agree with what you wrote!
Or he just had a bad day, who knows... The strange part is that I honestly believe that small authors must complement each other in order to reach a considerable number of readers.
I suppose it was inevitable that SS would be ruined at some point. The mere thought that we could find a site the allowed authors unfettered publication rights (within reason, or course) is turning out to be a panacea. TPTB simply could not allow this site to thrive. Sadly, for me, I don't have a place to retreat to to find uncensored information. Given that SS is now about to be ruined to the point that talented authors and dedicated readers will find it an untenable place to find information, I think we have reached the point where we need to cancel all subscriptions and visit authors "manually" if we want to see what's going on. Nothing good lasts forever. Bye bye Substack.
The attack on SS is now quite overwhelming and, as far as I can see, it is happening through the comment sections; trolls and bots are employed to turn the comments unreadable.
Vastly-popular authors, as usual, cannot afford to be completely independent, but they still publish valuable information:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/what-to-read-now-and-how
Authors, whose readership is only a few thousand are not forced to become compromised, although some of them are inevitably organized opposition.
Information is rapidly disappearing from the Internet, too, and popular search engines truncate their results to a few dozen officially-approved sites, so even the current SS is better than nothing.
My immediate subjective gut reaction is he thinks you are "tooting your own horn all the time". Of course, l don't agree with that. But l think you annoy him. You make him feel inferior. Too bad. He needs to grow up.
If he doesn't want your valuable participation & your links to your SS posts in his comment section then let him block you. His loss. You can't please everyone, Ray.
He certainly sounded irritable, but anyone can have a bad day, too. Who knows. I'll probably avoid commenting on his site altogether.
Ray , Mon Cheri , you are reading too much into this Mickey . Take a break from it .
With a limited view of what has transpired here, I would guess that one person has a strongly different view of putting their published links on other publisher's site. For example one may believe some sort of informal permission should be obtained, while the other may think it is an economic way of getting more information out to other readers and should be part of the substack culture. That practice could be what is considered spamming another substack comment section by some number of people, maybe you do this more often than other publishers. I don't mind seeing those links myself as I have a choice to click to the additional content, but to each their own preference. That trend with people getting quickly intolerant with others is starting to be noticeable. They might be sending out those aggression frequencies lately if you know what I mean.
Spamming only occurs if the links posted have nothing to do with the original post, wouldn't you say? Otherwise, links are meant to be complementary contributions to the discussions in comment sections. Occasionally, I myself wish I had links instead of two-page-long comments by commenters. :)
As trolling has become quite abominable in the last few weeks, I can also see why authors are losing patience. For me, it was a four-day-long experience, and I tried to warn my fellow authors about the new smart troll:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/this-site-needs-your-help
By now, I know how it works, so I don't see ghosts, but I eliminate trolls as soon as I can ascertain they are trolls, and it usually doesn't take long.
I almost made the decision to quit commenting and/or replying to replies after 'the 'mark and markus show'. While I can hold my own in any honest discussion or sincere debates on divergent viewpoints, the personal assaults take a lot of time and energy to address. I value substack, but the other methods for freely expressing everyone's perceptions without fear of censorship has to be weighed against the amount of time involved in the fortitude of standing ones ground when the digs and insults are so out of place with the character of the platform.
It took me seven months to ban the first person, Mark. Marcus happily vanished, but I would have banned him, too. I banned the next troll only after a single comment (I recognized him from several months before). Another person I had to ban was the last one for crude language and personal attacks. I hope, it's not going to happen anytime soon, because I realized these trolls' main purpose is to make the comment sections unreadable.
Of course, trolls do a lot more than that.
Here is a good guide to trolls from The-Crypto-Rationalist:
https://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1388
This is good to know that you took this action. Now, I feel it's safe to go back into the water again since you handled the sharks in our midst. I didn't realize until now that you banned them. I stand relieved.
I was trying to be nice, flexible, and understanding. It drained me down and it disn't work. I am glad that well-meaning readers (who never have to agree with me) can now use the space again.
Yes I agree, you aren't selling viagra in your links, it isn't spam. There are intel and military servants that are from other governments if not our own that are actively keeping the infighting and paranoia at adequate levels. I hope they all wake up to the reality of what they are ushering in and understand they will be total digital slaves to the bankers if this succeeds.
At one point, I also mixed up infantile commenter behavior with trolling. :)
As the results are the same (turning comment sections unreadable; they are the places for forming communities, and a lot of valuable information is shared there), I move in a lot faster than I used to.
Sometimes these conversations are so hard to have in this kind of text /comment format, and things get taken out of context. I can see what he means when you said "on the same team" is a form of manipulation, but I don't think this is what you were doing of course. His fears might have gotten the best of him. Hope you can get some resolution Ray.
Nothing is taken out of context here, Roman. On the same team is openly referring to "liberating minds." What's manipulative about that? I don't get it.
It's okay, in fact, I don't really care on my own, but I do care for my readers/fellow authors' opinion. The responsibility for my decisions still remains mine. :)
I hear you. I just think that the barrier created by the computer gives people more balls than they would have normally. Would be great if you could just call the guy and talk. But it's probably way past that now. Anyways, I support you Ray, and wish you well. Thanks for posting my stuff too!
My thing: I'm not into having conflicts with any of the authors where I comment. Occasionally I disagree, but I have quite a tendency to enjoy reading people whom I basically agree with but who add to my knowledge. So if someone didn't want me to post links, I wouldn't. But I'm all in favor of you doing what it feels right for you to do. The argument basically feels irrelevant to me. I care about the content of what you say - and of what I say.
On my end, I have always appreciated when people found my work helpful, but I didn't consider that a sign or proof of my accomplishment.
Also, I tend to learn from people who disagree with me more, and I also try to stay on good terms with them, which they do not always accept. Beyond that, I don't care; I cannot be loved by everyone. Nobody can, but at least, I can retain my personal integrity.
Obviously, I don't want to burden anyone, either. I asked Mickey if he wanted me to stop posting, but his response was not straightforward, which resulted in my current post.
You and I fully agree that the argument makes no difference to our work. Still, I am somewhat curious what brought it about. Of course, I have my own opinion, but I'm wondering what my readers/fellow authors think.
Your questionnaire, to be fair, lacks a key option : “none of the above”. Followed, if you are inclined with the opportunity to offer a brief explanation. As things stand you only offer negative responses. From my reading you are both being a little snippy. It’s a no score draw Ray. IMO.
Fair enough. Once you leave alternative opinions, I will add them to the final result, but you have to do that before the poll ends. :)
So, what do YOU think? What do you mean by "snippy"? I believe, my policies have always been the same, so there is nothing "snippy" about them, but I might be wrong.
Interesting....I see not ONE example of Ray offering only negative responses. 🙄
Neither does Ray. :)
That's exactly why I thought my work would complement his. I guess, he is right that I can't and I was wrong about that. I won't bother him in the future.