Blogging

Last week, I posted about a law suit that had been filed by a blogger for criticizing the State of Maine and its marketing agency. In that post, I mentioned that I was so horrified by the filing of this sort of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit against a blogger exercising his right of free speech that I was thinking about offer my legal services on a pro bono basis.

I decided to do so yesterday. In researching the suit and its status, I discovered that Lance Dutson, the blogger who was sued, was being represented by lawyers who are associated with The Media Bloggers Association, an advocacy group for bloggers. Here’s the mission statement for the group: “The Media Bloggers Association is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting, protecting and educating its members; supporting the development of ‘blogging’ or ‘citizen journalism’ as a distinct form of media; and helping to extend the power of the press, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails, to every citizen.”

Part of that advocacy is providing a network of attorneys well-versed in the sorts of intellectual property issues that arise, as well as the First Amendment and media law issues that go hand-in-hand. Today, I decided to volunteer some of my time to assist in the MBA’s efforts. If I can do some good, I am happy to do so.

The SLAPP suit against Dutson seems to have backfired, by the way. The MBA spread the word rapidly, and the blogosphere rallied around Lance Dutson. The plaintiff is now backpedaling quickly in the wake of a tsunami of criticism and scorn, and the governor of Maine has asked for a meeting of all of the parties in the hope of making this go away quietly and very quickly. We shall see. If it does go away quickly and quietly, it will be a real victory for the First Amendment, bloggers, and the MBA in particular.

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Dimitri, I tried to e-mail you earlier today, but your server bounced it with a message that you had exceeded your disk storage quota for e-mails. You might consider doing a little housecleaning. Sorry for posting this this way, but I have no other way to reach you if your e-mail is bouncing.

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I first met Sean Dail through the Gettysburg Discussion Group a number of years ago. Since then, I’ve had a number of opportunities to stomp battlefields with Sean (most notably, Spotsylvania, with Gordon Rhea as tour leader). Sean’s a good guy, and a fellow lawyer. Sean has just launched his own blog. Check it out.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Sean.

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I had lunch with fellow blogger blogger Mark Grimsley today. We had a chance to discuss a number of interesting topics, including blogging.

Mark was one of the very first entrants into the blogosphere, and either maintains or participates in three different blogs, including Civil Warriors, a blog that he maintains with Brooks Simpson and Steve Woodworth. When I started this blog, I specifically Mark’s blog as one of my primary inspirations for undertaking blogging.

One thing that strikes both of us is the wide variety of people who give their time and energy to indulge our blogs. Mark tracks statistics on his sites, and has been really amazed by the number of people who regularly read his posts. In my case, I’m just getting started with paying attention to the statistics, but the number of regular readers who indulge my rantings really humbles and impresses me, all at the same time. Both of us also paid tribute to the godfather of Civil War blogging, Dimitri Rotov. In my case, Dimitri was the other primary inspiration for my decision to begin ranting.

In case I haven’t expressed my gratitude to all of you who indulge my rants, I hope you all understand how much I appreciate that you find time in your busy schedules to indulge me and my rantings. I really appreciate it.

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Someone calling themself Jaywalker tried to leave a comment on my latest post about Google. The content of the comment was not objectionable, and had this person followed my rules, I gladly would have permitted it to post.

The problem, however, is that this person refused to use a real name or to leave an e-mail address with the comment. Without one or the other, I have no way of knowing whether I’m being spammed or scammed, and my operating rule is no e-mail address, no comment. Sorry, Jaywalker. Your comment was deleted because you didn’t play by my rules. And since it’s my site, I get to make the rules.

To anyone else who is not a spammer and who wants to leave comments on this site, you MUST do so with a valid e-mail address, or else your comment will never see the light of day. There are no exceptions to this rule, and there is no right of appeal.

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There are three new blogs that have popped up. Thanks to Mike Koepke for pointing out two of them, and to Andy MacIsaac for pointing out the other.

First is Brian Downey’s new Antietam-based blog. Brian is a renowned authority on the 1862 Maryland Campaign, and he should have some good insights to share.

The other two are joint blogs.

Another is Andy Etman’s Strike The Tent: A Reference & Research Destination With Peer-Reviewed Sources, Published By An Unemployed Historian And A Self-Proclaimed Civil War Nut, which contains the following description: “This is ‘Andy’s Civil War Blog’, to be used as a companion and reference guide to HIST 320-02, ‘Topics in History: The Civil War’ being taught by Professor Dr. Frances Jones-Sneed at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.” It appears to be a collaboration by several members of the class and its instructor. There are some interesting posts to be had there.

Finally, there is the new joint blog of Mark Grimsley, Steven Woodworth, and Brooks Simpson, all well regarded academic historians. It’s called Civil Warriors, and its stated mission–as defined by Mark Grimsley–is “Thinking about the issues involved in publicizing one’s own books — the overwhelming majority of books that appear each year are surprisingly undermarketed, and authors really need to learn to fend for themselves — I (Mark Grimsley) got the idea for creating (yet another) blog. This one would be a collaborative effort among several Civil War historians. The point of the blog — its drawing card — would be to focus on the craft of Civil War history. We’d talk candidly about what we were doing, why we did it, what we hoped would emerge from it.” These well-respected academic historians bring useful insight to the study of the Civil War.

All three of these blogs have been added to the links secction here.

Welcome aboard, everyone.

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I need to take a moment to rant about people abusing the privilege of posting comments to this blog. I had an episode today that requires a response by me.

Note to the Nathan Bedford Forrest fan who apparently doesn’t like my take on his boy: you do NOT get to insult me on my own web site and expect me to approve your comments so that they are posted for the world to see.

Feel free to disagree with me. I welcome the challenge. Feel free to use facts to demonstrate to me where I’m wrong. I’m usually the first to admit that I’m wrong and tip my hat to the person who points it out. However, if you really expected me to approve comments where you personally insulted me, you clearly are smoking something less than legal.

For the rest of my regular readers: this particular individual, whom I have never heard of before today, doesn’t like my take on Forrest and attempted to post some really personally insulting stuff in the comments section to this blog. Stuff to the gist of “you don’t agree with me, so you must be an idiot,” only more insulting and far more snide. The beauty of this, of course, is that this is my web site. I pay for it, so I get to make the rules. One the most basic, most fundamental rules is: people who are not related to me do NOT get the privilege of insulting me on my own web site. If that somehow infringes upon First Amendment free speech rights, sorry about your luck. Consequently, I exercised my prerogative and deleted the guy’s comments.

Those of you who’ve been around here for a while know that I welcome dialogue and that I readily admit it when I’m wrong. I find the give and take fascinating, and I really enjoy it. That sort of exchange will always be welcome here. However, please use some common sense. If you’re going to launch a personal attack on me, you can reasonably expect that I won’t appreciate it, welcome it, or react very well to it. Call me crazy if you like, but those are the rules on MY web site.

The comments are set so that anyone who hasn’t posted a comment previously must have their comment approved by me before it will be seen by anyone but me. Once you’ve passed that muster, they post automatically, but you have to earn that privilege. And it is just that–a privilege. It’s not a right. Needless to say NBF Boy won’t be getting that privilege.

There is only one thing that pisses me off more: people spamming my blog. There’s this lovely little trend of companies trying to insert spam in the comments section of blogs using spam bots, and I get several every day (three today). I’ve taken to reporting the spamming to their Internet service providers as their reward for wasting my time. Just my little way of returning the favors.

Sorry for the rant, but people abusing the comments section to this blog really anger me.

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Spam is one of the greatest irritants of my life. Because I am active on-line, I get more spam e-mail than you can shake a stick at. It clogs my mailboxes and bugs me to no end. If I had my way–if I was king of the world–spamming and virus writing would be subject to the death penalty. Justice would be swift, painful, and there would be no right of appeal. Death would be by the most slow, painful torture I can conjure up.

The latest tactic that these scumbag lowlifes have adopted is to spam blogs, too. Tonight alone, I have gotten six attempts to insert spam comments into various posts on this blog. Fortunately, my controls are set so that all first-time commenters have to be approved by me. If it’s obvious spam–tonight’s were for Viagra and porn–they get deleted instantly and have no chance of ever seeing the light of day. Others are a little more crafty. The send a comment that seems marginally on topic–such as “Great information, just what I was looking for”–with the idea being that if it seems on topic, you will approve it, and then they’re in, with carte blanche to spam you any time they want.

Consequently, I check every new comment carefully. If anyone new comments, and your comment never appears, it’s because something about it caused me to be suspicious. Please don’t be offended–I’m just defending my site in the perpetual war against spam. If you think I’ve deleted your comment wrongfully, please e-mail me and I will be happy to reconsider.

The owner of the company where this site is hosted tipped me off to some software that will help with fending these turds off, and I expect it will be installed in the next day or two. I will let you all know when it has been installed. Hopefully, its installation won’t bugger anything up here.

The wars–against spammers and neo-Confederates–never end. And I will never stop fighting them.

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Prof. Brian Dirck has joined the blogosphere with an interesting and well-written blog on Lincoln and the Civil War. The primary focus is Lincoln, and not the military aspects of the war, but I found the topics interesting and refreshing. I’ve added a link to Brian’s blog on my list of Blogs I Like. Check it out, and welcome, Brian.

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Andy MacIsaac, who apparently indulges my rants regularly, has entered the blogosphere with a new new blog titled “First Maine Forward”. Andy is working on a history of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery, and has apparently been inspired to start blogging on his own. I’ve also added a link to Andy’s blog from my list of “Blogs I Like”. Take a look, and welcome, Andy.

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