What kind of blogs should be allowed on IndiBlogger? Your take?
I've been active on IndiBlogger for past couple of months now. Over the time with my association with IndiBlogger, I've come across a variety of topics, that could be blogged upon, came through literally hundreds of bloggers, who have been generating content, a lot others who have been scouring the internet to finding and modifying content (because there are hundreds of topics which can't be blogged upon without copy-edit-paste) to keep their blogs living and their readers satisfied.
I have come across a lot of other blogs with somewhat erroneous contents, thus misleading the readers, (I've tried getting the errors rectified on one such blog, by contacting the blog author). I too have some content that has to be scoured over the internet, and I'm open to suggestions for such corrections. I came across some blogs (listed on IB), which have been reported as containing malware by google, and I tried getting such blogs removed by reporting such blogs to the IB Admin. At some instances, I came across some links which directed to now dead blogs.
Today I would like the IB community to readily discuss the content of blogs that are beyond the purview of the point 6 of IndiBlogger Blog Submission Guidelines found here.
One such blog content I came across is PIRACY. Though somewhere or the other, all of us are somewhat indulged in piracy, and there is no justification of indulging in piracy, or breach of Intellectual Propery Rights (IPR). I have come across one such blog listed here on IB which illegally gives away Serial Numbers/Registration keys for softwares including Windows OS, Tuneup Utilities, Adobe Applications, to name a few, and also gives tips to bypass activation methods, if any. So, I would like to discuss with the community, whether such a blog (involved in breach of IPR, illegal distribution of registration/activation keys/cracks/wares), be allowed here on IB?
I don't think so. Also, I think that blogger is stupid to do such things openly.
Here's the thing about readers (I am not talking about bloggers who promote eachother):If they don't trust it, credibility dies and so does traffic. All remains is people who still need to apply common sense, bot traffic and spams. They'll die automatically and eventually such bloggers get discouraged. Its painfully slow, but it happens. So lets just ignore it. Besides, I wouldn't like to see Indiblogger to judge who is good and who is bad. Let the people decide naturally.
Thanks for your valuable input The Sorcerer. However my point is why should IndiBlogger be a platform to promote such blogs. We all know that such blogs or websites aren't gonna die nor will see any dearth of traffic for the obvious reasons as known to all of us.
Time and again such blogs were removed banned, even the ones caught for plagiarism. That's also the point of having a manual approval system by a human being. But then again, there are lot of blogs here that are nothing more than advertisers, so its the person who approves it is to blame. Plagiarism check on the other hand is not possible to check properly ALL the time, considering most are those types that earn from ads/ referrals and at times have guest bloggers who re-word content made by someone else- or else they do it.
As long as its not directly harmful to the readers, I agree with The Sorcerer's reply. But one particular part of the opening post struck me as a bit more important - "which have been reported as containing malware by google". I think these are where we should draw the line, because navigating to a blog shouldn't be a danger in itself.
Yeah, it makes sense that malware blogs should be removed without question. I think "reported as containing malware by google" is a good key.
As for blogs that contain illegal content... well, I totally think we shouldn't have those, but I think it's asking too much of the Indipolice to weed those out. And what if they make a mistake? What if they delete a blogger that seems to contain material that doesn't belong to them, but in fact it's OTHER people who are copying THEM, and they actually own the material? I don't know, that just seems like it'd be too hard to enforce. And I am new, so I'm not sure, but I'm assumign the Indipolice are just volunteers, right? They're not paid? So that seems a lot to ask of them.
However, I think an "inactivity" policy would make sense. I mean, the Indirank scours the sites, so it can easily tell if a blog is inactive, right? So if you've been inactive for say, 3-6 months (lots of people may have huge life events that might keep them from blogging for a while, if they're just a small blog, so why penalize?) you automatically get removed? And then, if you start blogging again, you can just sign back up, no penalty. But this way if someone just quits blogging for good their blog doesn't stay here for infinity. lol.
Nope it is not a good key. I was once reported for containing malware because I had put a topoftheblogs widgets on blogger and that had some malware. If you go by that definition, my site would have been banned for no mistake of mine. And I have seen many a good sites become victim of such widgets.
This is a very serious subject which needs to be studied before passing out any judgements
@Vijay: That, as you admitted was a malware laden widget. Would you like to be served with malware when you visit some website/blog? No one would intentionally go to such a blog/site after seeing that warning screen. Banning such blogs rightaway isn't the solution. IMO, the blogger associated with the blog should be notified about the issue, and should be given time to resolve the issues before working upon a definitive action.
CK When I had put the widget it was ok. It became a malware after some time. Google notified me and I removed the object. That is why I said straight banning of "reported as containing malware by google" as suggested by readers is not a option.
And I am dead against plagarism particularly of the personal stuff (poems, article, essays, fiction and non-fiction) those should be dealt with seriously. But am I to judge that. No Sir.
@Vijay: No one's judging anyone/anything. Hence this community discussion. I'm much newer here than most of you and I thought it was a good idea to have a community discussion over the topic. No one's suggesting banning of a blog based on google's suggestions. This may happen any one's blog and even mine isn't an exception, and I won't like it being removed from here.
Remove a blogger from the directory for being inactive. I personally don't like it. 
Isn't it a good thing to allow others view the great blogs of the past?
I think it's asking too much of the Indipolice to weed those out.
IndiPolice only moderate forum threads. They are not involved in approving / removing blogs.
Indipolice are just volunteers, right? They're not paid?
Yes, they are unpaid volunteers and they do a good job most of the times. 
1. Google reported Malware thing is not foolproof - I have met some very incredible Company websites being Reported as Malware on Chrome Browser, and also I integrated an iGoolge widget on my blog quite ago which pushed it into Reporting Malware. We should report that thing to the guy owing the blog to help me solve the glitch.
2. For blogs into Piracy _ IB may follow the suite. But, they will survive without IB or will die their own death someday anyways.
3. There could be hundred of reasons for being Inactive - dont think more than 10% would be all time Bloggers! Most are student/professional/housewives who blog because the want to write and share...so throwing out someone for being Inactive - BIG NO!
Rightly said Punit. I remember the Del Monte contest page being reported as having malware.
My main concern of this discussion was blogs containing illegal stuff. The blog I was talking about, is just a plain technology blog, nothing much different from other mediocre tech blogs and I understand the blogger, very cleverly, has integrated the Serial Number/Registration/Activation keys, and hacks and cracks as, IMO, these are amongst the highest searched keywords, so, definitely this blog doesn't have any concern to drive more traffic in. Not surprisingly, all the Popular Posts of this blog are the ones containing serial numbers/registration/activation keys/cracks/activation bypass methods.
I use pirated software ( MS Office ) but at the same time I feel that IB shouldn't allow such blogs. 
But as you said, the blogger under question has integrated the keys into his post cleverly. So, it's not easy for the moderators to find out. I think the IndiTeam members who approve blogs don't spend time on the blog reading articles. Probably, they only check if the url exists and and if the contains the minimum number of posts. And some other simple checks like spam, adult content etc.
Now, I feel that on the profile page of bloggers, there should be a report button beside every blog listing. Clicking it should provide a drop down where we can select the reason. ( Just like the report forum thread button ) ( I'm a bit lazy to open a ticket every time I find such blogs ) And, those who report the blogs should be informed of the action taken - removed / not removed so that it gives us a sense of satisfaction that we have done something useful.
The cleverness of the blogger isn't in integrating the keys in posts, but to realize that the keywords associated with the content he/she is posting are very rich in traffic (mostly organic-i.e. from search engines). The posts are clearly titled to be identified without any issues whatsoever.
Asking the IndiPolice or the people who approve the blogs to keep such things at bay and to keep a check on is, IMO too much of a work for any volunteers like those in the IndiPolice or any other forum admins/mods, even if they are being paid.
I would rather suggest inclusion of a voting feature (Anonymous) open to all members, to deal with such blogs. I agree with Ranjith's suggestion about a report button against a blogger's profile. In case where one finds such a blog, one can report it, and a notification be sent to the concerned blogger as well as the IndiPolice. If the blogger rectifies within a timeframe (say for example 15 days), well and good, else a voting, whether to weed out such a blog commences.
CK and Ranjith, the people who do wrong things will get punished by powers that be
. My opinion is that if you dont like a blog dont read it. If he/she gets traffice by cheating so be it. It is pertinent to note that the blogger is running the blog not us. As far as Plagarism goes these posts should not be allowed to enter into contests and this should be made mandatory.
As it is the Mods are doing a superb job containing spam and flaming on the forum and the indibloggers are also a very active community in pointing out the xxx blogs to Admin I did it once by bringing bangloreloka to notice (it was selling illegal prescription drugs)
Why do we need a super power (whatever you want to call it) when we have such a nice system in place
As it is the Mods are doing a superb job containing spam and flaming on the forum and the indibloggers are also a very active community in pointing out the xxx blogs to Admin I did it once by bringing bangloreloka to notice (it was selling illegal prescription drugs)
We want to discuss things like these only. The reason you did it, applies here also, sans the fact that no one's getting killed. Now imagine 10s of such blogs being reported to the IndiPolice everyday, and being humans, that too, most of them working for an earning, it's too much of a work, and beyond that, a more of a emotional dilemma of being accused of partiality. I'm suggesting the community to take a call and decide what's right for such blogs, thus, reducing atleast a bit of their workload, and making IB, somewhat cleaner.
And here we have another one. Selling some Auto Traffic Generation System on his blog, and proudly promoting his content here on IndiVine.
Although I may sound stupid, what on the God's green earth is Auto Traffic Generation System?
Its the full form of ATGS 
And PS would you explain what is ATGS ?
It's an automated software that generates traffic to your blog/website.
@ PS Really?
@ Pankti You install it and run. It will visit your own blog in the background many times, changing IP ( which chnages country ), and many other things. And so, you get AUTOMATIC [ USELESS ] TRAFFIC. There are many other variations. But I don't want to confuse you.
Ranjith is it a SEO bot which makes your traffic look good
@ Vijay You can call it whatever you want. But SEO bot sounds wrong because it has nothing to do with seo.
And yes, traffic looks good. As the ip is being changed, it appears that many people are visiting your site which is not the case if you yourself visit your blog many times ( it still counts as one visitor ) But at the end, it is of no use except fooling advertisers. ( which happens very rarely )
Another question: as the visits are artificial, why wouldn one want it (unless you are trying to cheat your advertisers by inflating the number of visits)?
Same question Ranjith what is the use of artificial visitors when we are already wary of the bots on blogger views page(at least I am). Do they serve any purpose at all and would GA recognise and report them as visitors ?
Moreover, since the visits are inorganic (direct visits), the traffic doesn't generate too much value for your website or blog, as it would by organic traffic (i.e. generated from search engines). Added to this, since most of these visits are automated, your website/blog will see a lot of bouncebacks (i.e. no activity beyond the first or the landing page). To sum up everything, What we are trying to achieve by hardwork, quality content, and extensive SEO and engaging with our visitors, over months, and years altogether, can be achieved by paying for a software which can do it for you in hours, let alone days or weeks, or months.
While we are in this topic! One of the companies who sends me review samples for testing and reviewing showed an interest of having a giveaway- a hard drive, maybe a USB 3.0 or a internal one- whatever. Now, if I put such posts in Indivine, should it be allowed- or not allowed?This 'should it be allowed or not allowed' conversation can go on and on.
I'll get another thing. Someone has wordpress for putting up content but also has a forum. He gets solid traffic, this that and most likely will influence the ranking. should such sites be allowed as well????
I'll bring another example. For example we have a moron who basically hates people based on petty differences: region, religion, social status, etc. Should such people be allowed???
So, in your opinion we should stop this conversation as a moron is bringing up petty issues, he thinks don't add value to the forum, as well as to a lot of its members, and wants to discuss whether what he thinks is right or wrong?
I didn't say that now, did I? You're only assuming that I said that but I didn't say that. Maybe you wanted me to say that but I wanted to say this. And I did!
Guys Cool down!
@TheSorcerer: There are many a topics where "This 'should it be allowed or not allowed' conversation can go on and on", but we still talk and discuss don't we?
@CyberKid: May be you have taken Sorcerer's words too much out of proportions, its just his opinion, dont take the things personally.
@ Punit: The problem isn't about the opinion. I very well know that everyone has his/her opinion, and don't bother whether someone thinks as I do or completely opposite. I have a problem with the language one uses to express his/her feelings, makes opinions about people without even knowing their real names, let alone knowing their personality, and there the things start becoming personal.
Shaant Gadadhaari bheem Shaant @CyberKid :)Ignore what you don't want to listen, apna khoon kyun garm karne ka 
Punit thats what I said at start of this thread. Are we here to see who is posting what or to discuss common problems and achievable goals?
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