Monday, August 25, 2014

The Way Things Are

Click to enlarge
I just sent the following reply to a reader who told me his comments weren't being posted on Examiner: 
I have written numerous trouble tickets to Examiner and they blame Disqus. I don't know if it is because people have put urls in their comments to trigger an auto-moderation or what, but I have seen obvious spam comments allowed through while timely, thoughtful and informative ones have been delayed until weeks after anyone is even bothering to revisit the story. I've also speculated it might be comments flagged by trolls and even blogged about it.

Between that and driving readers away with obnoxious pop-ups and autoplay videos, I lose subscribers almost as quickly as I gain them, plus take no small amount of heat for something I have no control over. 

I have no solution for you. I wish I had an economic option to post somewhere else, but I have not been successful in making that happen. 

I've talked before about the need to use the AdBlock Plus add-on to keep the intrusive ads from taking over, and believe it is everyone's responsibility to learn  how, do it and practice "safe surfing" instead of complaining to me about something within their control. Still, that makes sharing my links problematic for many.

I also have to put each article through a "Facebook Debugger" after it publishes, or else either the wrong thumbnail will appear or an "Uh-oh Examiner" message will post instead. That screen capture included in this post is hardly unique.

Then I get the people who complain that gun magazines suck because all they do is whore for manufacturers, so my stuff there is off-limits for them, and others who have chewed me out for doing stuff over at The Shooter's Log because that makes me a sell-out to Cheaper Than Dirt, and I can't wait to see how the fallout over JPFO will make me persona non grata to some. And it's not like NRA or its loyalists want anything to do with the views I often express.

It is what it is. I'm doing what I can.  If it isn't enough, I'll have to make a decision about what other options are open to me.

A man's gotta eat.  I've figured out how to do that before, and will again.

And no, I don't expect anybody to do anything about this. It's mine to figure out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,

In my opinion -

YOU can do no wrong.

Anybody who complains to you about stuff like this should just

STFU!

You are worth 1,000,000 of those people.

Scott in Phx, AZ

Anonymous said...

Don't let a few people complaining give you a negative impression. A lot of people read your work every day and love it. I wish you would accept donations because so many of us love your work and would like to pay for it, myself included.

Or what about setting up an amazon affiliate program on your blog like a lot of websites do? That way you can get a percentage of each transaction that people would have made anyway. I know lewrockwell, vdare, economicpolicyjournal, and several other websites do this to make extra money.

Anonymous said...

And the computer illiterates complaining about pop ups?!?!?! Really? Maybe if this was 2000 they might have a claim, but all sorts of basic updated browsers block them automatically. Just download the latest google chrome and stop complaining about something that is the fault of your own ignorance and incompetence!

They whine and whine about it, but if you charged for your column they would whine about that, too. What whiners and babies! Until they can advance to the current decade in computer knowledge, they need to shut up and stop complaining unless they want to subsidize your columns!