THE SUN GOES DOWN ON FEEDJIT
I have decided to remove my Feedjit Traffic feed because I wish to ensure the complete privacy of my readers.
I did love those little flags but was disappointed to discover I did not have any readers in Salisbury, Woking and Surbiton.
Was that reader with the flag in Ulan Bator, Mongolia actually in Essex?
But I did find out that I was read in FORTY SIX different countries over all five continents!
My sitemeter is now set to private I hope.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 9:02 AM
20 Comments:
It is indeed set to 'private'!
So now we have gone private, Norman :)
I just checked your sitemeter, and all I get is my own statistics so it seems that the crisis is over.
Thank you both. :O)
Dear Norman, I am rather sorry to read this post. I was so happy for you, the pleasure that widget provided you. I am very sorry to have crushingly disappointed you by revealing that "Woking" and "Surbiton" are actually Kingston - depending on the mood of some mast or other when I drop in. Personally, in this era of CCTV and all the rest of it, I think that objection to the widget on Friend feed was a bit over the top, I am sure most visitors do not mind at all (I don't, it is quite exciting to be in the company of visitors from Mongolia, or is that a Yurt on Dartmoor?).
Thank you Maxine I did "love" those flags but I can still watch them in private. ;o)
I am sure my visitors in Indonesia, Japan, Brazil and the Philippines found it exciting to be in the company of visitors from Woking and Surbton. [Even if they did not exist]
"Bit over the top" agreed. :o)
Maxine thanks for your support on FF. I need to calm down....."shape shifting abuse" what rubbish.
Norman, I had not actually read her post at Aust Crime Fiction when I wrote my comments above. I also had not seen your comments there and your attempts to engage her in a civilised way. I was rather upset by her attitude, and the fact that I tried to comment on her blog but she later revealed she'd "turned off comments" - not a good way to encourage reason!
Anyway, just popped back here to say frankly I regard Karen's actions as bullying - your blog is your own and you should put widgets on it if you like. If people visit once, see the widget, don't like it and decide not to return, that is fine - and up to them. There is really no need to post angry comments about it in a forum group (rather than putting a small comment in to your actual blog on the one visit you make!), and use swear words, etc. I think you should put the widget back up if you want to (also Dorte and Steph and anyone else). Users can decide for themselves what they do, they do not need to lecture the rest of us into doing everything the way they want it done.
I do miss the flags and entirely agree with you. I understand internet bullying is really a serious problem for young people and you don't expect it on an adult forum. I looked into the sitemeter widget and found it gave me more information [privately] than the feedjit and that was the only reason I changed, not the bullying.
Thanks for your support.
Changing the topic somewhat, Uriah - that's a lovely sunset! (Actually, I don't understand half of this stuff about privacy and RSS feed and whatnot...and just wish I had a little expert who would sit next to me while I look at the screen and explain things very, very slowly).
Hi Clare, that is Budleigh Salterton beach where the Jurassic Coast a World Heritage site starts.
You don't understand half of it, well I don't understand any of it. When I ask my son to help me he goes "click click click see it is easy " and it isn't and I have to ask him to slow down again and again.
I am surprised when anything actually works!
As, I said before Norman, I have had Feedjit running for well over 12 months and I rather enjoy the info it gives, and I certainly don't think what I can see invades the privacy of my readers.
For something different though you could try Clustrmaps
http://www3.clustrmaps.com
There is an example of it running on my blog. I enjoy seeing red dots appearing too.
Thanks very much Kerrie and I agree with you.
But I have had the sitemeter running for just over a day now and that actually gives me a lot more information along with World maps.
The rather nice day/night map reminds me it is morning in Australia and your dot appeared.
I have a Mac so not all of these widgets work the same as on Windows, or at least your feedjit gives more details than mine did.
I can see nice little flags on the location list and continued my different country count of visitors and it has now reached an incredible 52.
Perhaps my technotwitish brain is missing something here, but I am utterly bemused by this. Surely the widget tells nothing except that someone or other from a particular area came a-visiting. What the hell's wrong with that? I thought it nifty. Karen's comments at AFC I did not think nifty at all. The only reason I don't remove her from my short list of favoured blogs is that she was never on it.
I do rather wish this hadn't all gotten so nasty because privacy and the internet is such a misunderstood issue that it could have become an opportunity for people to learn some things about what can happen to the private information they give and collect, knowingly and unknowingly, while traversing the web. The big problem is not spammers (they're annoying but they can't send you to jail and are unlikely to hunt you down and kill you) but rather what people with more sinister intentions can do with the information that's flying about cyberspace. Several years ago I was at an international conference for my work and a Canadian police investigator told a quite harrowing story of how a woman had been stalked online and in person for months the person had been able identify her physical location (admitedly in a small town in the middle of Canada not a large city) due to the identity footprint she left unknowingly on the various social networking sites she visited online. It was quite sobering to realise how easy it was and how impossible it was for her to erase that footprint once the investigators worked out what had happened. The presentation I watched was focussing on the legal issues of who had some responsiblity of what happened in this case and, at that time, there were no clear answers but at some point it wouldn't surprise me if the someone tries to throw mud at bloggers for collecting or allowing such information (e.g. location, unique IP address) to be collected. That's one of the reasons I don't use any of these services.
Philip I too am bemused. I agree it was nifty but some visitors expressed their concerns more diplomatically than Karen C [off line] and that is why I stopped it.
I am going to think about this but it is difficult to concentrate when a new TV series with Sharon Small has hit the TV screens this week. ;o)
Complete rubbish but Sharon is in it.
I will try and put the "site mete" world map on the blog some time.
Bernadette thank you for your comment and lucid explanation of the problem. Another visitor had expressed similar misgivings [off line] and that is why I stopped using the feedjit traffic feed for the present.
I think you've dealt with all of this admirably Norman as I suspect it all hit you with a bit more force than was warranted given your entirely innocent intentions when choosing your widgets. Well done for maintaining your composure throughout.
Thank you very much Bernadette. I was a bit more rattled than I showed by the tone of Karen C's comments especially as my Australian friends are so easygoing. My wife's grandfather was Australian [ he lost his life in a First World War submarine] so we support whoever is winning at Rugby and Cricket .;0)
I have looked at the FAQ page on Feedjit and put the offending widget back on because so many people thought the flags were interesting. I hope it won't offend anyone.
Your version is fdiffernt to mine Norman. Mine has an Option at the bottom where people can choose Ignore My browser, and also see the liove traffic map
Kerrie I am struggling with this but you can remove the record of your visit by clicking on Live feed and remove my IP and then leave. If that makes sense.
That should preserve privacy unless someone is on checking at the same time as you. But I may try to install another version some time. I am a bit nervous of all this technology.
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