my guess it's "oh shit!", followed by a prayer that Google doesn't do anything.
I don't think he has anything to worry about for that last part, Google is notorious for letting big sites off the hook(remember Target?) + here Google is also making their share of money off adsense
I just tested this by submitting that same Scribd rant. My account sees it as having been submitted, but if I'm not logged in the story doesn't appear at all.
Can I add that Paul's method of making things disappear without telling users is shit? It was a lot of fun realizing my account was dead and I wasn't just going crazy. Same with this story. I almost posted a comment defending him until I thought to test the story logged out.
You are free to question PG's motives and cry censorship, but to me, that blog post was malicious, tasteless, angry drivel that I really wouldn't want to see on here, whether it was about a YC company or not.
Even a casual search of ScribD content will reveal the motives for Mr. Mann's post. He has every right to be angry. The malice has been well-earned by ScribD's repeated actions with other creator's content for nearly its entire history.
While it's true there's no accounting for taste, I suggest you consult the dictionary on the definition of 'drivel'.
At the end of the day, PG can do, essentially, whatever he likes with the content, routing (or lack there of), and posting permissions on Hacker News. It's HIS site.
It's a shame that ScribD doesn't seem to play by an equivalent set of ownership principles. Namely, hosting and making money off other creator's content without so much as asking their permission; let alone proffering any ad-revenue sharing.
As to your other points, I think they are good. For me, intelligent debate does not talk about fucking anyone's whore mother in their ear. If that is what I was looking for, I'd read YouTube comments.
edit: admittedly, tptacek does have a point re: the flag button vs. blacklist.
Kudos indeed. I'm glad Tptacek brought up the often-neglected 'flag' feature.
Again, there's no accounting for taste, but offhand I'd say labeling curse words, and their creative use, as "childish" is quite overreaching. Have you read any David Mamet, Frank McCourt, or Larry McMurtry lately? Do you honestly feel a child would have sufficient skill to structure prose in that fashion?
Scribd ceased doing related search queries some time ago. Their CEO described it, to Techcrunch, as "reducing the aggressiveness of our SEO, which reduces total traffic in the near term but increases the relevancy of Scribd links in search engine results."
Scuttlebutt among SEOs whose opinion I respect suggests that it is highly probable they got a backchannel from Google telling them that either they could drastically reduce the footprint of their pages in the SERPs or that Google's search quality team would assist them in doing so.
Anyhow, their traffic went down by about 50% in a month, if you trust Compete et al.
Search for [Scribd "aggressive SEO"] if you want the whole tale.
At least on Experts Exchange, you can read the question/answers without signing up. It's just well-hidden (and doesn't show up in text-only browsers like w3m or links last I checked). You have to scroll all the way down the page past the looks-like-the-content-but-is-blurred-out-or-otherwise-obfuscated section, and past all of the navigation links. The content is actually there.
I don't necessarily condone their page design and misdirection, but I have found answers on them through Google searches in the past.
It wasn't always that way. They used to only show google it, but if a regular user came along they couldn't see it. Google got a bit mad and what you see is their current hack to appease google, and screw users.
This 'hack' was in place years ago. IIRC, I used to back in 2003 or maybe before then. Maybe at some point they removed it, then Google made them put it back?
It used to be Javascript-obfuscated. For all the times I clicked on one of their links only to have my blood pressure raised: I hope Experts Exchange withers away into obscurity.
When it was blurred out with JavaScript, I always was able to find the actual content further down the page. I think that the 'blurred out' version of it was just to make people give up. Either that or their JavaScript was broken for Firefox.
Comments
my guess it's "oh shit!", followed by a prayer that Google doesn't do anything.
I don't think he has anything to worry about for that last part, Google is notorious for letting big sites off the hook(remember Target?) + here Google is also making their share of money off adsense
And Scribd.com, exact same model, scrape content regardless of copyrights, straps adsense on it, makes money.
Agreed. I think Merlin Mann has the best take yet on Scribd: http://tinyurl.com/yzl3mod
And pg capriciously blacklisted his domain from news.yc in response
Merlin is blacklisted from Hacker News? Link to discussion about this?
I just tested this by submitting that same Scribd rant. My account sees it as having been submitted, but if I'm not logged in the story doesn't appear at all.
Can I add that Paul's method of making things disappear without telling users is shit? It was a lot of fun realizing my account was dead and I wasn't just going crazy. Same with this story. I almost posted a comment defending him until I thought to test the story logged out.
Wait, you had to start a new account because he hell-banned unalone?
That's low, even by pg's standards.
You are free to question PG's motives and cry censorship, but to me, that blog post was malicious, tasteless, angry drivel that I really wouldn't want to see on here, whether it was about a YC company or not.
Even a casual search of ScribD content will reveal the motives for Mr. Mann's post. He has every right to be angry. The malice has been well-earned by ScribD's repeated actions with other creator's content for nearly its entire history.
While it's true there's no accounting for taste, I suggest you consult the dictionary on the definition of 'drivel'.
At the end of the day, PG can do, essentially, whatever he likes with the content, routing (or lack there of), and posting permissions on Hacker News. It's HIS site.
It's a shame that ScribD doesn't seem to play by an equivalent set of ownership principles. Namely, hosting and making money off other creator's content without so much as asking their permission; let alone proffering any ad-revenue sharing.
>I suggest you consult the dictionary on the definition of 'drivel'.
I meant drivel. The linked post starts with:
> So, I went with, “fuckyourwhoremotherinheronegoodear.”
Drivel is "childish talk" (mom insults, anyone?) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drivel
As to your other points, I think they are good. For me, intelligent debate does not talk about fucking anyone's whore mother in their ear. If that is what I was looking for, I'd read YouTube comments.
edit: admittedly, tptacek does have a point re: the flag button vs. blacklist.
Kudos indeed. I'm glad Tptacek brought up the often-neglected 'flag' feature.
Again, there's no accounting for taste, but offhand I'd say labeling curse words, and their creative use, as "childish" is quite overreaching. Have you read any David Mamet, Frank McCourt, or Larry McMurtry lately? Do you honestly feel a child would have sufficient skill to structure prose in that fashion?
I never said anything about cursing. I said mom insults were childish. So yeah, if I had said that, that would have been overreaching.
That's why we have the "flag" button. It doesn't blacklist sites that are mean to YC companies.
You forgot related search queries, which is basically bogus search queries that produces even more visits and bogus search queries.
Scribd ceased doing related search queries some time ago. Their CEO described it, to Techcrunch, as "reducing the aggressiveness of our SEO, which reduces total traffic in the near term but increases the relevancy of Scribd links in search engine results."
Scuttlebutt among SEOs whose opinion I respect suggests that it is highly probable they got a backchannel from Google telling them that either they could drastically reduce the footprint of their pages in the SERPs or that Google's search quality team would assist them in doing so.
Anyhow, their traffic went down by about 50% in a month, if you trust Compete et al.
Search for [Scribd "aggressive SEO"] if you want the whole tale.
Directly measured @ quantcast:
http://www.quantcast.com/scribd.com
The big falloff end of June I assume.
They have 5 adsense blocks on their site, blended into the content. Good luck trying this as well if you are a "small" adsense customer!
when you have more than 5 million uniques, you qualify for Adsense Premium, at that point Google pretty much tailor fits the ads for your site
Thanks for the information!
Yeah, 'regular' adsense publishers have a limit of 3 blocks per page.
And Experts Exchange...
At least on Experts Exchange, you can read the question/answers without signing up. It's just well-hidden (and doesn't show up in text-only browsers like w3m or links last I checked). You have to scroll all the way down the page past the looks-like-the-content-but-is-blurred-out-or-otherwise-obfuscated section, and past all of the navigation links. The content is actually there.
I don't necessarily condone their page design and misdirection, but I have found answers on them through Google searches in the past.
It wasn't always that way. They used to only show google it, but if a regular user came along they couldn't see it. Google got a bit mad and what you see is their current hack to appease google, and screw users.
This 'hack' was in place years ago. IIRC, I used to back in 2003 or maybe before then. Maybe at some point they removed it, then Google made them put it back?
It used to be Javascript-obfuscated. For all the times I clicked on one of their links only to have my blood pressure raised: I hope Experts Exchange withers away into obscurity.
When it was blurred out with JavaScript, I always was able to find the actual content further down the page. I think that the 'blurred out' version of it was just to make people give up. Either that or their JavaScript was broken for Firefox.