Oct 31
Obfuscated Blogging
I’m telling you, there are things that need to be said that aren’t getting said. Why? Fear. In this brand new burgeoning world of Web 2.0, there are groups which threaten the integrity of these new architectures. They exist in the back alleys — the streets that used to be the Main Streets but are now just ancient and rarely traversed trails between towering constructions of virtual netropolis.
Few dare to travel along these darkened paths anymore, and those that venture there are a silent and reclusive breed, often bearing multiple schizophrenic identities and leading triple lives which transitionally fade in and out of each other like the colors of overlapping subsets in a Venn diagram. Ego and elitism are their currencies, and they are traded and protected with remarkable intensity and secrecy.
One of their members has a toe in the fresher waters of the mainstream, which is ironically defined by its indefinition, but refuses to open the sluice gates between a reservoir of knowledge and the confluences of this forum because of the afore mentioned fear and a reluctance to bite the hand that feeds, so to speak. So, I have defined as one of my challenges the arbitration of the conditions under which this stalemate can be dismantled.
Can a language of obscured terminology mapped by shared subtext keys allow for a dialog to begin for this silenced minority? You know who you are, so try it. Work backwards from something simple and harmless. Perhaps, a subtle drawing out under innocuous pretexts will help: Not even Apple is exempt from the techno-elite hating game.
Discuss with passionate abandon, you newly free but remaindered fearful. There is a rabbit hole here, will you descend, or remain in your shadowed ambivalence? There are guides throughout.
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17 Comments so far
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Honestly Nels, what on God’s green earth are you talking about?? I tried to follow this post, but it seems you were going in circles, leading nowhere. Be more specific please.
Rrrrrrriigght…..
Yeah, that was a little far out or whatever. Basically, I have an idea.
ObscurativeObfuscated blogging. If a blog hosts content that someone is interested in, it can currently be Googled and discovered by anyone. This is great. Very useful and efficient and helpful and all that.However, what if it is one’s intention to discuss something in a public forum that might inadvertantly draw the attention of the wrong sorts of people? How would one blog about such topics and avoid the Googling eyes of unwanted readers?
Encryption, firewalls, and other traditional network security techniques wouldn’t do the trick. The idea is to make the content accessible to anyone, not just those within a certain level of clearance within the given forum.
Instead, simply avoid the use of keywords used by people to search for blogging activity on a specific subject. Is this making any sense?
Case in point: I will never blog about trendy pop musicians EVER AGAIN. I want to avoid hater idiots being redirected here via Google or wherefromever. Stupid haters.
You can use post levels to prevent anonymous visitors from reading your content.
By the way, I don’t know if that post link works with persons not signed in; I’d like to know since it’s supposed to be hidden.
I do not have a problem with you posting about anything in particular. In fact, the whole John Mayer thing made yesterday our highest traffic day yet. So as far as I am concerned, blog away!
Heh, yeah, but I just have a serious problem with people dissing other people who they don’t even know. Sure, musicians are subject to greater amounts of criticism on a regular basis, and such. But most of these people are hardly music critics, let alone critical thinkers.
Also, the blocking of anonymous posting would be the incorrect solution to the problem. The problem is not with anonymous people posting comments to the blog, it’s with having the wrong anonymous people taking notice of a post on a given topic in the first place.
That last comment of mine is getting off track. This is not supposed to be a thread on music and stuff. This is supposed to be a thread on obscurative blogging and the Apple iPod being smashed by a bunch of punk dorks with nothing better to do. HI-larious, I say!
No, the Post Levels thing has to do with posts being hidden, not the comments. Anonymous visitors cannot post to this site unless through comments (which is still moderated). If you were to write a post you did not want the general public to view (i.e. about work), then use a post level.
Ack. No. I’m not making myself clear. I am not interested in writing posts that the general publc cannot view. I want the general public to be able to view it. I want the general public to respond to it. (If they can understand the post in the first place.)
What I am talking about is specifically people who use a search engine to hunt for topics being discussed in blogs by using keywords such as “i+hate+john+mayer” or “john+mayer+is+cool”. I want to avoid attracting their attention in the first place. In order to accomplish this, I would have to refrain from explicitly using such keywords, yes?
1. I want the anonymous web surfer to be able to browse to the post, view the post, and comment on the post.
2. I do not want the anonymous web surfer to be able to zero in on blog threads with the intention of trolling/disrupting discussion/website operation, etc.
Is that clearer?
You’re asking for something that is technically above and beyond the scope of a webserver. You are wanting to implement natural language filters into sites like technorati. That is not likely to happen until google can invent a much more intelligent search engine and opens it up.
SHUT YA FAT FACES, YA BLOODY TARDS@!!@!!!
Y’ARSELES!@!!
.!.. ..!.
…
@s1n: I am not wanting to “implement natural language filters into sites like technorati”. I’ve been trying to explain the problem, so the solution I have already proposed will become easier to understand:
What’s so difficult to understand about this? All I’m proposing is that a blogger who wishes a particular thread to dodge exposure to the attention of the wrong people simply obfuscate the topic and content of the thread. The discussion would take place using a shared map of substitute words to replace attention-getting keywords. This would help to facilitate the conversation of a given thread by avoiding unwanted trollers and other disruptions.
I’ve thought about it, and I’m changing the title of this thread to Obfuscated Blogging, though, I doubt it’ll enhance the clarity of its subject anymore than I’ve already been banging my head against the proverbial wall in an attempt to do. I’m rapidly getting the distinct impression that I had the wrong idea about this forum… we’ll see.
As mentioned in the original thread, there is no unwanted visitor. Just because someone does not agree with your point of view, does not make them unwelcome at this site. Simply avoiding the use of searchable keywords in this blog does not mean that search engines will stop referring people here. The best example is the term “corpse bridge.” Clearly this is a misspelling of bride, but some how it draws a good chunk of traffic to this site. How google ranks the pages does not necessarily have anything to do with topic_a.
Also, if you wish to hide a post from the general public, use a post level. This will prevent unregistered users from viewing/searching for terms in posts that they are not granted to see.
I’m not saying it will prevent the referral of people to this site. I’m saying it will reduce the efficiency with which ne’er-do-wells are referred to this site based on keywords they have entered into their search fields in their quest to cause trouble. You totally do not seem to be getting what the thrust of my idea here is, s1n, and I am tired of trying to explain it.