3 ms·

It's "almost-attributed" because he included my name, but there was no link or mention of my site. I don't care about the name. I care about the site. That's wh

It's "almost-attributed" because he included my name, but there was no link or mention of my site. I don't care about the name. I care about the site. That's what the whole rant is about. Of course I knew that Google tailored results. How would I have been able to include any context in this post otherwise? You took a human-written sentence out of context and made it make less sense than it does in the body of the post.

ed209 15y ago
to be fair to sequoia, that's how I read it too (within the context of the article).
mjwalshe 15y ago
Have you implemented the author markup as Google suggest?
danmaz74 15y ago
Honestly, I immediately noticed that sentence too, and it really detracts from your article. As for your attack on G+, the only real problem I see is if they promote G+ posts over the original. But that could also just happen because maybe many of your "friends" liked or shared the G+ post (that wouldn't be surprising), and you being logged in to google, the algorithm interpreted those social cues of high importance for you. The best solution, though, would be if those "social love" was transferred to the linked article.
Zirro 15y ago
"because my informal language gave trolls too much ammunition to make a distracting non-point." Don't call people trolls just because they highlight a confusing statement of yours. Judging by the comments here (and on RWW), it was easy to interpret it "wrong" even with the context of the article.
- ceol 15y ago
  Even if he didn't know, would his not knowing that Google tailors results per-user somehow make his other points worthless? That seems like a form of poisoning the well.
  - sequoia 15y ago
    I looked up "poisoning the well" because I didn't know the precise meaning, thanks for the new phrase! In fact I'm not "poisoning the well" because a) My opinion was the one in question; Poisoning the well requires an audience and poisoner and more importantly b) I didn't introduce this information, the author wrote it himself. Anyway regarding poisoning the well, check out the second example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well#Examples "The text is written so obscurely that you can't figure out exactly what the thesis is (hence "obscurantisme") and then when one criticizes it, the author says, "Vous m'avez mal compris; vous êtes idiot" [roughly, "You misunderstood me; you are an idiot"] (hence "terroriste")."" Ironically, this does precisely describe the behavior of a commenter here, but it's not me. :p
    - ceol 15y ago
      Thanks for your response. What I meant was that him not knowing Google tailors results has no bearing on his gripes about 1. not being able to link to the original article, 2. Google favoring Google+ posts in search results overall, 3. and the Google+ interface looking and working terribly. I used poisoning the well because it was a related ad hominem: you're saying him being wrong in this one instance means he is wrong in these other unrelated instances.
      - sequoia 15y ago
        Hmm... I certainly didn't mean to say he "is wrong." Given many claims I can't verify, I give the person the benefit of the doubt: I can't say if it's right or wrong so I'll assume the author is right. BUT, once I see one assertion that I know to be way off or highly uninformed, I revoke that "benefit of the doubt" on all the other claims. As I said it's unfortunate, but I can't assume the other assertions are any more valid than the one I know to be wrong/uninformed. Horse flogging, stop now: If you were to tell my that northern Spain is rainy in the winter and Sweden has long dry summers, I'd take your word for it (I know little about the climates in those countries). BUT if you then told me snow is rare in winter in the US Northeast, which I know to be false, I ask myself "hmm... could his statements about the other places be equally inaccurate? He has demonstrated he does not know what he's talking about vis-a-vis local climate trends." Do you see what I mean? I'm not saying anything he wrote is true or false, it's just called into question by a demonstration of ignorance on the topic.
sequoia 15y ago
"I changed it, because my informal language gave trolls too much ammunition to make a distracting non-point." I am polite, point out that much of what you say is useful, and thank you for a correction, and I'm a troll. Reddit is that way, friend. --> As for my "misinterpreting" the meaning of what you said, there was no misinterpretation at all. 'A friend told me her results were different than mine / I now know that google serves different results.' Without more context, the only reasonable interpretation here is that you learned the latter from the former, there is no misinterpretation. "My business went under / now I'm broke." If you interpreted the latter as a result of the former, you would be correct, not mistaken. ;)

ed209 15y ago

to be fair to sequoia, that's how I read it too (within the context of the article).

mjwalshe 15y ago

Have you implemented the author markup as Google suggest?

danmaz74 15y ago

Honestly, I immediately noticed that sentence too, and it really detracts from your article. As for your attack on G+, the only real problem I see is if they promote G+ posts over the original. But that could also just happen because maybe many of your "friends" liked or shared the G+ post (that wouldn't be surprising), and you being logged in to google, the algorithm interpreted those social cues of high importance for you. The best solution, though, would be if those "social love" was transferred to the linked article.

Zirro 15y ago

"because my informal language gave trolls too much ammunition to make a distracting non-point." Don't call people trolls just because they highlight a confusing statement of yours. Judging by the comments here (and on RWW), it was easy to interpret it "wrong" even with the context of the article.

ceol 15y ago
Even if he didn't know, would his not knowing that Google tailors results per-user somehow make his other points worthless? That seems like a form of poisoning the well.
- sequoia 15y ago
  I looked up "poisoning the well" because I didn't know the precise meaning, thanks for the new phrase! In fact I'm not "poisoning the well" because a) My opinion was the one in question; Poisoning the well requires an audience and poisoner and more importantly b) I didn't introduce this information, the author wrote it himself. Anyway regarding poisoning the well, check out the second example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well#Examples "The text is written so obscurely that you can't figure out exactly what the thesis is (hence "obscurantisme") and then when one criticizes it, the author says, "Vous m'avez mal compris; vous êtes idiot" [roughly, "You misunderstood me; you are an idiot"] (hence "terroriste")."" Ironically, this does precisely describe the behavior of a commenter here, but it's not me. :p
  - ceol 15y ago
    Thanks for your response. What I meant was that him not knowing Google tailors results has no bearing on his gripes about 1. not being able to link to the original article, 2. Google favoring Google+ posts in search results overall, 3. and the Google+ interface looking and working terribly. I used poisoning the well because it was a related ad hominem: you're saying him being wrong in this one instance means he is wrong in these other unrelated instances.
    - sequoia 15y ago
      Hmm... I certainly didn't mean to say he "is wrong." Given many claims I can't verify, I give the person the benefit of the doubt: I can't say if it's right or wrong so I'll assume the author is right. BUT, once I see one assertion that I know to be way off or highly uninformed, I revoke that "benefit of the doubt" on all the other claims. As I said it's unfortunate, but I can't assume the other assertions are any more valid than the one I know to be wrong/uninformed. Horse flogging, stop now: If you were to tell my that northern Spain is rainy in the winter and Sweden has long dry summers, I'd take your word for it (I know little about the climates in those countries). BUT if you then told me snow is rare in winter in the US Northeast, which I know to be false, I ask myself "hmm... could his statements about the other places be equally inaccurate? He has demonstrated he does not know what he's talking about vis-a-vis local climate trends." Do you see what I mean? I'm not saying anything he wrote is true or false, it's just called into question by a demonstration of ignorance on the topic.

sequoia 15y ago

"I changed it, because my informal language gave trolls too much ammunition to make a distracting non-point." I am polite, point out that much of what you say is useful, and thank you for a correction, and I'm a troll. Reddit is that way, friend. --> As for my "misinterpreting" the meaning of what you said, there was no misinterpretation at all. 'A friend told me her results were different than mine / I now know that google serves different results.' Without more context, the only reasonable interpretation here is that you learned the latter from the former, there is no misinterpretation. "My business went under / now I'm broke." If you interpreted the latter as a result of the former, you would be correct, not mistaken. ;)