Last week I found a funny rail related article on a news site and thought readers of this blog might also appreciate it. It was about 5km of disused rail track being stolen, somewhere in Germany. It would have appeared just below the previous post. Yesterday, I realised it was missing.Have Google censored my blog? What other explanation is there for the missing article. It has clearly been removed, yet I got no notification, or even a courtesy email, despite having registered my email address with this account.
Admitedly I posted the full text of the news article, but it was very short - it would have been hard not to. I fully credited Reuters, and linked to the original article on their web site. I consider this fair use, since it is a tiny part of what Reuters publish on a daily basis. Its not like I scrape every single news story from hundreds of news services using an automated process and then database all of the stories and post them all over my own home page, while at the same time offering my own RSS or ATOM feeds to further distribute the articles, and rewriting the original article links in order to redirect all clicks through my own site for tracking purposes, or anything... Oh wait... that would be Google News.
Let me get this straight... Its ok for Google to aggregate news from all over the place, redistribute it, and track your clicks, but its not ok for me to post ONE article, properly linked and credited?
Google you should listen to your own words: "Dont be evil"!
The worst part is that Google are not accountable for anything. As a Google user, there is no support desk that you can email with a problem, and get a response. (If there is, please let me know because I certainly cant find it). All you have is their help pages, with a list of pre-defined newbie problems, like a FAQ. If your question is a little more technical, you have to click on the link at the bottom, saying "My problem is not listed here". You click on that, and get a form where you can describe the problem, but they never respond. I have sent them specific issues and specific questions about my Google account - some of them more policy related than technical, and nothing... no response. There is no way, that I am aware of, to ask them about my missing article, and get an answer from them.
I used to be Google's biggest fan. They have certainly revolutionised the web by being innovative, but the shine is beginning to come off, and they have grown to become a huge monolithic corporation that is no different from any other large corporate entity... Cold, impersonal, and according to the criteria normally applied to humans, psychopathic.
You're beginning to lose it Google. Pay attention before it too late.
PS: The missing post was MUCH smaller than this one. Personally, I saw more value in the earlier post.
2 comments:
Hi Wylie - I got to this page from the Trainz forum thread to do with whistle boards etc.
I have nothing to say about the missing article, but want to comment that in South Africa we regularly have train delays as a result of power cable theft of the LIVE cable. Every so often someone gets fried but they have been very crafty using wooden bow saws to cut the cable on the mast and steal a kilometre at a time!
We also have telephone cable theft (like 100 pair cables go missing) and things like iron drain covers disappear.
It's the guys who don't have a job and so can't buy food for their families who carry out these deeds and sell the loot for a pittance.
Regards
Trev999
hey wylie,
mate sorry to hear about the deleted post, i did indeed read it before it was removed, and witness it was properly referenced, and was reasonably short.
btw, excellent work on your train stops. and i'm really pleased with the project list, just the things us NSWelsh trainzer's need.:-) keep up the great work.
Alex.
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