Hello Capra
Nice to hear from you at last, welcome! But please, please PLEASE change the title when you auto-reply to a message in the Daily Digest. Nobody will read a message titled "Re: Digest Number 2309", it confuses the threads and fouls up archives searches forever. Thanks! Second, no problem with long posts, and yes, indeed it contains no bile. Which makes a change, thankyou. But it does contain some misconceptions, especially about Journey to Forever regarding "competition" and about links. We're just not interested in competition, it doesn't motivate us at all and never has. Everything about Journey to Forever is collaborative and cooperative, we've never tried to "own" a corner of the "market" - we have no market, we have nothing to defend, and we simply don't regard other sites or other resources as "competition" that we have to outflank or outdo or outperform or out-anything. That has been said here in this tortuous discussion a couple of times, and also Girl Mark knows it very well, though she keeps accusing us of competiive motivations anyway. This following is from this previous message that's been referenced several times in this "ahem, 'discussion'": http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/37932/ >You say it makes me "well-known for the site"? I could care less. It >just doesn't work like that. There's a four-year backlog of really >great project feedback, a large amount of it (every day), quite a >lot of it sent specifically to me, that hasn't been added to the >"What people are saying" page because every time I look at it I get >embarrassed and find something else to do (and get told off for it). >I'm not exactly a by-line freak. > >As for Journey to Forever, we don't promote it at all, we haven't >for a long time, it promotes itself, it grows by itself, which is >very nice, but strictly from our own point of view it's gotten right >away from us, we can hardly keep it maintained, we get far more >feedback than we can easily handle, we have severe problems with >time available for what we have to do, and life would be much easier >for us if it only had 100,000 hits a month instead of half a million >and climbing. And I've said all that before. As you know. Along with that: "I've quite often said that, it's incontestable, and the same goes for the Biofuel list. We don't promote it in any way." Recently an argument developed among the list administrators in discussing the future direction of the list, when one of them insisted that the priority must be a proper marketing campaign and serious list promotion - we hadn't even clearly identified our competition, how could we hope to outflank them? After a lot of arguing, all the other administrators, 12 of them, rejected everything about this proposal - marketing and promotion was NOT needed and would probably be counter-productive, and competition was not a concern. And that's the way it is. The marketing member just couldn't see it, he accused the others of smugness and complacency, they'd learn the error of their ways in time, he'd seen it all before. Well, so have I seen it all before - marketing men very often can't see such things. I've worked with marketing people (and against them too!) for 35 years in a variety of ways, I know them well, I know from marketing, and I know when I don't need it. So, as far as I'm concerned, me, the Biofuel list and Journey to Forever, what you say about competition falls completely flat. I'm just not interested, that's not what's motivating me at all. It's as I've said it is, very simple, nothing more to it, no hidden agendas. As far as Mark is concerned, that's for her to say, and perhaps for others to judge from what's already been posted. Regarding links, one reason Journey to Forever gets such a high rating from the search engines is, as you say, that so many other sites link to it. We do know about links and linking, but it's a very long time since we sought links - it's a ball that rolls on its own, just as the website and the list do. Every day we get link requests, with people saying "I've linked to you so you link to me" and explaining the mutual benefits - only, nearly always, they're anything but mutual: a link at a new site that gets a couple of hundred visits a month is not quite the equivalent of a link at an established one that gets half a million. Fair's fair, give me $100 and I'll pay you a yen for it? Others say they've linked to us, they give us the url, and say they don't expect a link in return unless we'd like to. Okay, that's better - quite often yes, thanks, we would like to: these people are indeed more likely to be worth it, to have something of quality and relevance to offer. So it depends on a lot of things, it's not necessarily always beneficial, and it's definitely up to the website owner, with NO obligation. And, please, copyright ownership and publishing rights are of course related but they're not the same. There is no copyright ownership being contended here. Credits and sources and requests for links should not be confused, and that's been made clear enough, with sufficient original background material provided to make it stick. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ Biofuel list owner >Dear lovelies in biodiesel land, > >Wow. It is nice to know that there are strong personalities out there, >especially behind two of my favorite sectors of the biodiesel world, >namely JtF, which continues to be featured prominently on my site, and >the tinker's workshop with the ever fabulous Girl Mark. > >I've been a very silent witness to the SVO/B100 movement for the last >year. Why? > >Well, #1 was that I was starving. I was answering the phone 4 hours a >day advising people on their systems, and not getting paid a penny for >it. I literally starved. Nice. I remember being on the way to give a >speech on condensed infrastructure & SVO to Americorps, who paid me $48 >and lunch, and almost fainting off my bike in the middle of Broadway. I >started charging $40 for an hour and a half consultation, and all my >charts/diagrams/info, which I also still give away for free over ftp, >should anyone want them. That pretty much eliminated the calls, and it >was a good riddance. > >But the main thing about it is that I am continuously stunned by the >vicious sense of competition that so many of the leaders in the movement >display. There are notable exceptions, and the vast majority of the >people who aren't pounding the pavement for it seem to be genuinely open >about sharing. All I can think is that the keen sense of competition >from those at the forefront comes from a deep failure of activists to >comprehend the way the capitalist system works. Recently, two of the >people that I gave a lot of information for free denied that information >to a couple other friends who were going to start a business repairing >repo diesels and doing conversions on them. I was stunned. > >Kids--competition is good. If there weren't a Starbucks on every >corner, do you think Denny's could charge $1.50 for coffee? Absolutely >not. > >One other thing that you should know--whether or not you consider adding >a link to your site a "promotion" of another person's site--Google & >other search engines give priority to sites that are interlinked with >other sites. That's right. The more people you link to & the more >people that link to you, the better your site will fare when someone >does a "biodiesel" search. In all the time you've spent blowing hot air >about it, both of you could have added twenty more links to your site, >or written nice e-mails to people with related sites encouraging them to >link to yours. You/they could always say no, but at least you would >have had fun and your blood pressure wouldn't have raised at all. In >fact, any of you with sites related to veg-oil or biodiesel, bring them >on. I'd love to link you to my site. It may take me awhile to get >around to it, but hey. And also keep in mind that if someone owns the >copyright to some material that you're planning on using, that doesn't >go away whether or not they put their request for credit in the original >"contract" (though it's a very good idea to make clear how you want to >be credited). > >And remember that if you patent something, that doesn't mean that it >works. > >Sincerely, > >Capra J'neva > >P.S., sorry for the length of this post, but at least it contains no >bile. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
