Saturday, September 02, 2006

Party time at the UnderGround Cafe!!!!


IMG_9030
Originally uploaded by Oldmaison.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are losing readers by changing topics so frequently. Look at Spinks and look at the number of comments he is getting. Comments here are almost zilch.

Blogger Charles LeBlanc said...

May I remind ya that this is a blog who's owner has ADHD???

God knows what will come out in one of my five ADHD brains???..lol

But I'm trying to stay on the topic of the election.

Blogger Charles LeBlanc said...

May I remind ya that this is a blog who's owner has ADHD???

God knows what will come out in one of my five ADHD brains???..lol

But I'm trying to stay on the topic of the election.

Anonymous said...

Please do not use ADHD excuse again. Let your blog succeed. By frequently changing topics you are losing readers.

Anonymous said...

Blog readership is cyclic. New blogs often get the 'new interest' but I'll remind you that just a couple of weeks ago people were talking about how Spinks blog was getting no comments.

Keep in mind that there is an election, that also increases comments and interest in blogs.

Charles blog is unique, and if a reader is too stupid to figure out how to use the 'scroll down' feature of their browser thats nobodies fault but their own.

Charles is an activist, which makes his site unique, many people feel more comfortable making comments at blogs that are just meaningless water cooler topics because they are not involved. Commenting at an activist's site is a step toward actual political action, which many people seek to avoid, for obvious reasons.

The measure of a blog's success is not how many people comment. By now Charles knows what topics he can post which will get long discussions, but repetition is not the function of a blog.

A blog can be a number of things. No political action will ever come out of Spinks blog, or any of the other NB blogs out there. Charles has spurred political activity on dozens of fronts now, and that value cannot be measured by people commenting "yeah,your so right, well said" or "no, your wrong", but is measured, in this case, by attention to basic human rights.

Charles has been at this for years, so just because some people are commenting on political issues at new blogs means little, new political blogs have come and gone in this province, Charles is still churning it out.

The one comment I'd make is whether, at least on a trial basis during the election, Charles would revert to the days before comment moderation. As has been said, it makes actual debate difficult, and I'm not sure but a big drop off in commentors happened when he was incommunicado and no comments showed up for days.

We know why it was done, but at least for the election it should be tried again, since an election usually brings out more civilized conversationalists. It is true that during the election people are posting comments elsewhere, but if you go read the comments, their value is of limited quality.

Blogger Charles LeBlanc said...

I thank you for the nice words of wisdom but I will say that the old ways to open the comments will never come back.

You must understand there's a lot of people who wish to discredit this blog.

That's fair game but I enjoy leaving the computer and go for a nice walk without worring what the hell is in the blog?

I come back and the comments are all there for me to accept or deny?

The comments are 98% posted but you have a few using the F word and just foolish.

I get one who always calls me chucky. Well? My name is not chucky so I just reject it.

A blogger needs a break once in a while and my mind is at ease when I moderate the comments.

I have lots of ennemies out there and it would be choas.

I would have to search the blog and delete the comments.

Sorry don't have the time,

Going to the earlier comment?

Can you imagine if this blog was only on the issue of the poor and ritalin?

Sure would be boring!!!!

Anonymous said...

Just for the sake of analysis I checked out the 'spinks blog', there are a couple of threads that have a fair number of comments, but most of them are the back and forth of other bloggers, and retired bloggers, essentially spouting the same tired stuff. It's basically a hobby for people who can't find a decent hobby elsewhere or find anything to watch on TV. Most of it is Spinks well worn gripes at the CBC or just comments from the CBC site. Nothing new.

So don't even think of changing Charles, except maybe doing something about those pictures, because those with dialup are really screwed. But this blog really is a blessing, you can tell because Charles has his own gripers coming out against him-now that's effective!

On another topic, I saw the 'call in show' mentioned from that little Fredericton radio station, how about giving them some well deserved publicity and talking about when the show is on, what they are discussing, etc. They won't succeed without people talking!

Anonymous said...

I think the point that only 2% are rejected show that it would not be 'chaos'. And the fact that one of them is rejected just because of the word 'chucky' shows just how subjective the criteria (Charles name isn't 'kook' either, but that shows up here).

Obviously there are just some types of comments that piss you off and so are deleted, and thats not a good thing.

I'm a firm believer that 'enemies' should be out in the open. I remember these comments well and it reflected on them, not Charles. In fact it made people even more defensive of Charles. Likewise, it makes it true that Charles is being hypocritical in editing his site against those he 'doesn't like' yet arguing against radio and television stations which do the same thing.

Also, it seems an odd logic that if lack of time is a problem then staying chained to the computer to check posts as they come in would be the last thing that is desirable.

I do post comments on the elections, but I do it at sites where I can post and it will be there instantly so that a dialogue is easy.

That being said, Charles gets more of a variety of comments than most blogs, and posts about ten times the amount of content, which will spread out comments, but also makes the blog more like a newspaper, where people go to the site for information and entertainment-not to be heard (but its nice to know the option is there)

The trade off may well be fewer comments, that's Charles right to make that decision. Personally I don't share it and never saw curse words at all 'back in the day'. I always said that Charles should have just posted a banner saying that he doesn't read comments, and like most message boards, could simply leave it up to readers to inform him when 'bad' comments are posted.

If Charles had said "fifty percent of comments are nothing but curse words and threats" then that would be different. But stating that 'those days will never come again' is being as intransigent as the legislature, and like the legislature issue it is a step backwards. There's a chinese saying "the tree that bends in the wind weathers the storm that breaks the firm"

Anonymous said...

"'those days will never come again' is being as intransigent" 8:24 AM well said. Intransigent is the main trait of Leblanc.

If he is tree then there are no branches. All broken and gone because of lack of flexibility.

He keeps saying he did not receive warnings from the legislation.
Read his earlier blogs and it was obvious there were all kinds for warnings which he chose to ignore. He was very intransigent and disruptive, and he continues to be one wherever he may be.

Spinks said...

Folks, as long as you're talking about me say what you wish. There's no such thing as bad publicity, remember. Besides, anon1:47 who I've tangled with many times is right, this is a hobby (so what?)and nobody in New Brunswick with only NB content is going to get 100,000 hits a day or whatever magic number the anons above think makes a blog successful. A blog is successful when people are paying attention to it. Charles' blog has people paying attention. politicsnb.blogspot.com,
sorrycentrist.blogspot.com, and harrap6000.blogspot.com are a few others that have a variety of voices commenting as does spinkaboutit.blogspot.com

Say what you want about my making points about the CBC but the evidence proves they and others are paying attention. They could choose to ignore it but Charles will attest to the fact that the media, politicans, government employees and corporations visit the blogs to see what is being said. The blogs are read and they will continue to grow because they fill a void for opinion that the mainstream media cannot fill. After all you folks are here aren't you?