Daily Dose of Drama…

I’ve admitted it recently. I’m addicted to playing over at Blogshares. I pick my investments based on random things – how much they cost per share, how much I feel like spending, how much I’m willing to risk. Sometimes the site itself comes in to play – have I heard of it? Do I have some sense as to whether or not it will rise in value? I knew that Chris Pirillo at $3.86 was a great deal, and when I sold those shares for $13.45 a share, it was a nice warm fuzzy feeling. I don’t have cash to invest in the real stock market, so it’s fun to watch my portfolio there. I will soon be investing in gold-IRA, I heard it is a great way to start, so if you´re interested in investing your money, then start there.

(I moved this to the extended entry part – undedited – because the page was too long. Read on if you like…)

Then I read at Solonor’s site that there are people that have been harrassed for asking to be delisted from Blogshares. Now jumping off of the Blogshares ship seems to be the latest cool thing to do. I’m seeing posts all over about it.

Don’t get me wrong. If you want to be delisted, you should be allowed to be delisted. Seyed has said right on the front page of the site that he is working on this feature, and there are still bugs. It’s not the most eloquent of posts; I could see stuff in it when I read it yesterday that would ruffle people’s feathers. Some of the blogs I’ve invested in have been pulled and I received my funds back that I have invested in them. Blogshares as a whole is still in beta, and there have been kinks along the way to be worked out. I think Seyed is doing a kick-ass job of handling this by himself; it is more then I could ever do – and I think that goes for most of us.

But I’m NOT jumping on the “this is bullshit and I want to be delisted too” bandwagon. It doesn’t hurt me one bit to have my blog listed there, and even if I stopped playing tomorrow I would leave it alone. It’s a commodity that is being traded and nothing more from my point of view. I’m listed at the Blogging Ecosystem, the blog neighborhood thing, Daypop, Blogdex, etc. – this is nothing different.

The lesson I’ve learned time and time again this past year? I can’t make my choices based on what other people post on their blogs (or in the forums at Blogshares in this case.) That’s how the whole posse mentality gets started every time, and I feel bad for Seyed right now as he is getting attacked for something he has put a TON of hard work in to. No one likes getting attacked like that for something that the trolls have done…

Edited: Huge kudos to Eric Brooks for his Web Skirmishes 101 post today. My favorite line? “We’re ALL public figures – Don’t give this cop-out that you’re “just an average person”, while you bash another person like they’re a celebrity with no feelings. What you write can be seen anywhere on the planet.” You can’t have it one way and then do the opposite yourself. It’s just not cool.

Edited Again: If you think this post is about you, it’s not. My apologies if I gave anyone that impression. I didn’t have any one person in mind as I wrote it, I didn’t mean to label anyone or lump people in categories. I was just speaking out on the posse mentality I felt like I was seeing. Sorry if anyone thought I was pointing at them, I didn’t mean to. (Ok, I did link to Solonor, but that’s where I first read about all of this, and I figured you guys would be wondering what the heck I was talking about.) Opt out, it’s all cool to me. It is your right. I’m still wondering now what all is being done with my weblogs.com ping data and I wish someone would let me know…