Saturday, April 19, 2008

Getting off Hivemind

If you're on Hivemind (the site, not the Hivemind OS software) and you want to get off, all you have to do is publish your real name on your Wikipedia page... simple right?

Except my real name's been there all along. Very first edit to the page, in fact.

But I got added to Hivemind recently. No. I'm not giving you the link to Hivemind, it gets enough inbound links as it is. Trying to ask Brandt why gets zero reply.

Maybe it's more like you have to also not annoy Daniel Brandt by calling him a weenie (or worse, see this blog post). Or maybe you have to get behind whatever his latest hobby horse is... delete whatever he is hot about, sign whatever petition he is keen on, etc. Or maybe ??? Who knows?

Point is, if you want to be seen as acting on principle, as Brandt claims to be doing, you have to actually act on principle, and not act based on personal grudges.

That's what I try to stick to, and "acting on principle" is precisely what I was arguing in defending the redirect deletions... the principle of deleting them was correct even if Daniel Brandt himself was not a nice person.

Else, if you consistently don't act on principle, you're just a bully. As Moulton pointed out, Brandt's actions fit the description.

Kato justified Brandt's tactics here. I suspect that there is some validity to the claim that you have to fight unfairly if you have been treated unfairly. But on the other hand, is attacking those who most want to help the most reasonable way to effect change?

I don't think so. Do you?

4 comments:

Moulton said...

I went back to look up the statute that Daniel Brandt cites on his Hivemind page...

--------------------
Sec. 113. Preventing Cyberstalking.

To strengthen stalking prosecution tools, this section amends the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) to expand the definition of a telecommunications device to include any device or software that uses the Internet and possible Internet technologies such as voice over internet services.

This amendment will allow federal prosecutors more discretion in charging stalking cases that occur entirely over the internet.
--------------------

It occurs to me that this statute has little or no bearing on the problem.

David Gerard said...

The problem is that Daniel Brandt is a liar and a sociopath. Also, his research abilities are pathetic.

MessedRocker said...

One of your tags is "bully"!!! I am informing the Brandt Police!! That's seven demerits for you!

Tim said...

I've never been added to that HiveMind page, which is a little disappointing considering that so many people that I admire are there already. Maybe one day, I live in hope.

Tim Vickers