Comments on: Beggars and Tyrants: The Rich Irony of Growing and Managing Social Networks http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/ Thoughts on Web 2.0, Social Media, Marketing. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:25:56 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Dreamhost Not Asshats After All (With Their Blog, Anyway) at The Blog Herald http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2393 Dreamhost Not Asshats After All (With Their Blog, Anyway) at The Blog Herald Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:51:52 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2393 [...] Blog Herald News Nov 14 at 1:54 pm by Tony Hung -So, a few days ago one of our more senior columnists, Dave Krug, noticed that Dreamhost seemed to be deleting comments on their own blog after their most recent service issues.  I also blogged about it tangentially over on my own blog, and after a few days one of the Dreamhost employees got back to me and clarified things. [...] [...] Blog Herald News Nov 14 at 1:54 pm by Tony Hung -So, a few days ago one of our more senior columnists, Dave Krug, noticed that Dreamhost seemed to be deleting comments on their own blog after their most recent service issues.  I also blogged about it tangentially over on my own blog, and after a few days one of the Dreamhost employees got back to me and clarified things. [...]

]]> By: Jeff @ DreamHost http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2350 Jeff @ DreamHost Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:15:59 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2350 Hi Tony - Another update. :) Turns out that Mr. Krug's comments were eaten by a WordPress plug-in we use called SpamKarma - apparently it thought his comments were spam and retroactively removed them. No DreamHost employee was involved in selectively censoring his comments. It was an automated removal. I've posted a comment to this effect to his site, though it's stuck in moderation until his approves it. We've explained the situation and have asked that if he has similar concerns in the future he contact us for an explanation before posting such accusations to his weblog. Either way, we do prefer to "lay it all out there" - we're confident in the services we offer and feel that in the end a reasonable comparison of us versus our competitors will show us in a good light (warts and all!). - Jeff C. @ DreamHost Web Hosting Hi Tony -

Another update. :)

Turns out that Mr. Krug’s comments were eaten by a WordPress plug-in we use called SpamKarma – apparently it thought his comments were spam and retroactively removed them.

No DreamHost employee was involved in selectively censoring his comments. It was an automated removal.

I’ve posted a comment to this effect to his site, though it’s stuck in moderation until his approves it. We’ve explained the situation and have asked that if he has similar concerns in the future he contact us for an explanation before posting such accusations to his weblog.

Either way, we do prefer to “lay it all out there” – we’re confident in the services we offer and feel that in the end a reasonable comparison of us versus our competitors will show us in a good light (warts and all!).

- Jeff C. @ DreamHost Web Hosting

]]> By: Tony http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2327 Tony Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:31:52 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2327 Thanks for stopping by Jeff. I was using "Social Network" in the broadest sense to be honest -- and noticing what happens when any community gets large, whether it be forums, readership to blogs, or what have you. And I use "tyranny" to mean just that: when owners or authors throw their weight around to the community that drove them there. Deleting posts might be on one of that spectrum, but I've also seen some very prominent blogs, for example, "out" their posters anonymity. Otherwise, thanks for clearing the Dreamhost comments thing up. I'm glad it was a 'rogue' thing, as I've noticed you've had much more vitriolic comments when there were similar problems earlier this year. Cheers t @ dji Thanks for stopping by Jeff.
I was using “Social Network” in the broadest sense to be honest — and noticing what happens when any community gets large, whether it be forums, readership to blogs, or what have you.

And I use “tyranny” to mean just that: when owners or authors throw their weight around to the community that drove them there. Deleting posts might be on one of that spectrum, but I’ve also seen some very prominent blogs, for example, “out” their posters anonymity.

Otherwise, thanks for clearing the Dreamhost comments thing up. I’m glad it was a ‘rogue’ thing, as I’ve noticed you’ve had much more vitriolic comments when there were similar problems earlier this year.

Cheers
t @ dji

]]> By: Jeff @ DreamHost http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2325 Jeff @ DreamHost Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:21:13 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2325 Just a follow-up: It does look like the post in question may have been removed (as someone apparently quoted it later), though it's not clear why or how. We've left much more critical (and pretty unreasonable) posts in place, so why someone here would bother to remove it is hard to say. - Jeff C. @ DreamHost Just a follow-up: It does look like the post in question may have been removed (as someone apparently quoted it later), though it’s not clear why or how.

We’ve left much more critical (and pretty unreasonable) posts in place, so why someone here would bother to remove it is hard to say.

- Jeff C. @ DreamHost

]]> By: Jeff @ DreamHost http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2323 Jeff @ DreamHost Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:08:59 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2323 Just a clarification - we've been accused of censoring our _own_ weblog's comments, something which (as far as I can tell) is not true and has not been substantiated. In any case it's definitely not normal company policy to do that (as evidenced by the number of critical comments which are left alone whenever an outage occurs - some of which are clearly advertisements for our competitors). A quick look at our status weblog in particular will show a number of such comments any time a server/service goes down. That comes along with the territory when you host tens of thousands of web sites that people depend on. While it's not clear that any insidious censorship was occurring, just in case a rogue employee was deleting weblog comments we've sent out a "hey, if you're doing it, cut it out" message to our internal employee list. That said, it's not clear to me how this ties into any sort of 'social network'. It's just a weblog - our own - with a comment section. Censoring critical posts is lame, calling it 'tyrany' is a bit much. Fact is that most hosts maintain a firm grip on their image (even going so far as to sue critical speakers for alleged libel/defamation), but us - not so much. On the whole we appreciate being held to such a higher standard than the other guys, but... :) - Jeff C. @ DreamHost Just a clarification – we’ve been accused of censoring our _own_ weblog’s comments, something which (as far as I can tell) is not true and has not been substantiated. In any case it’s definitely not normal company policy to do that (as evidenced by the number of critical comments which are left alone whenever an outage occurs – some of which are clearly advertisements for our competitors). A quick look at our status weblog in particular will show a number of such comments any time a server/service goes down. That comes along with the territory when you host tens of thousands of web sites that people depend on.

While it’s not clear that any insidious censorship was occurring, just in case a rogue employee was deleting weblog comments we’ve sent out a “hey, if you’re doing it, cut it out” message to our internal employee list.

That said, it’s not clear to me how this ties into any sort of ’social network’. It’s just a weblog – our own – with a comment section. Censoring critical posts is lame, calling it ‘tyrany’ is a bit much. Fact is that most hosts maintain a firm grip on their image (even going so far as to sue critical speakers for alleged libel/defamation), but us – not so much.

On the whole we appreciate being held to such a higher standard than the other guys, but… :)

- Jeff C. @ DreamHost

]]> By: StrayPackets · A Web Forum Isn’t a ‘Social Network’ http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/comment-page-1/#comment-2164 StrayPackets · A Web Forum Isn’t a ‘Social Network’ Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:18:30 +0000 http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/10/beggars-and-tyrants-the-rich-irony-of-growing-and-managing-social-networks/#comment-2164 [...] If you run a forum for your customers, are you a business or a social network? [...] [...] If you run a forum for your customers, are you a business or a social network? [...]

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