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On Blogging Brawls and Bragging Rights
A couple of days ago Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism posted a comment, Who Is Tyler Durden? The post generated over 187 comments (and still counting), most of which were infantile swipes from morons claiming that one blog is better than the other one.
I got carried away too and used language that I shouldn't have, but after sleeping on it, I want to offer you some of my thoughts on these blogging brawls and bragging rights.
First, while I defended Yves from the vitriolic attacks in the comments, her post was stupid and probably done to stir up shit in the blogosphere. As I stated in the comments, who cares who Tyler Durden is? Whether it is one person or a group of people posting anonymously, is irrelevant. As long as Zero Hedge keeps delivering interesting comments, people will read it and make up their own minds as to accuracy of what they are reporting.
That brings up my second point. Everyone has an agenda, including yours truly, and so does Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism. Everyone has their "schtick" and they want to be heard. The thing that gets me is that some people are a lot more transparent than others in their agenda. I use my real name, you can read all about me on my profile, I tell you my agenda right at the top of my blog. I say this because I just found out yesterday that Yves Smith is Susan Webber of Aurora Advisors.
[Note: Admittedly, I am an idiot because when I first started reading Naked Capitalism, I thought Yves was a guy. She then sent me an outline of her new book and I still couldn't figure out who she is. She even emailed me once or twice as Susan Webber and I never put two and two together because at that time, I thought it was someone else. You have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of her blog to see Aurora Advisors. No problem, I wish she told me right off the bat in clear English or posted it on her blog clearly so I can add her company to my list of advisors on my blog, which I gladly did last night.]
Third, your credibility is only as good as what you post. I can easily castigate Yves Smith, citing that she worked for Goldman Sachs or that Lehman Brothers and Soros Fund Management are part of her firm's client list. I can conjure up a conspiracy theory that tells you Goldman Sachs is behind Naked Capitalism to bombard the market with disinformation. But Yves has posted numerous critical comments, some of which are highly critical of the financial establishment. I do not question her credibility, but I would have liked it if she was more upfront of who she is and where she works. If you are selling your services to clients in the financial world, you should disclose it.
Fourth, posting anonymously does not detract from the message but again, please state your qualifications and your agenda. Everyone has their agenda, so just be upfront and state it. Some of us stick our necks out more than others, however, because quite frankly, we got nothing to lose. As I told one former pension bully who kept threatening to sue me, "I know the truth and will disclose it in a court of law. I got nothing to lose." It cost me a future in the pension industry, but I had my fill of pension parrots and pension politicians and their feeble cover-your-ass board of directors.
Fifth, I find it absurd when I read comments like "this blog is the best or that blog is the best". Why do we blog? Because we are fed up with the bullshit that the investment bankers, banks, insurance companies, private funds, mutual funds, and pension funds are feeding us. I consider blogs as another medium to help me gain an edge in what is really going on.
Importantly, the blogosphere has fast become a key medium in the information arbitrage business. There are many excellent blogs out there and none of them have a monopoly on wisdom. Some think they are more important than others, but they are only fooling themselves.
Sixth, we all have our personal tastes when it comes to blogs. For example, when I want to know about markets, I love reading Tim Knight's Slope of Hope, Ben Bittrolff's Financial Ninja, and David Spurr's Displaced EMA. The Kirk Report recently had an excellent Q&A with Tim Knight which put it succinctly:
In fact, every time you visit his blog you can count on Tim saying or sharing something that is likely to amuse you and/or at least get you thinking about something. His perspectives are always fresh, witty, and clearly different than the typical "we're always in a bull market" garbage found within the mainstream financial press.
I do not always agree with Tim, Ben or David, especially recently where I feel their bearish tone totally underestimated the effects of performance anxiety following a horrible Q1. But what I appreciate is their free thinking and the fact that they have "skin in the game". They are individual traders trying to make a living, not some investment bank trying to sell ideas to big institutional clients (so they can front run them or take the opposite side of the trade). I will say it again, in the environment we are heading, small is beautiful and you'd better forget what the claptraps on Wall Street are saying and pay close attention to what the top hedge funds are buying.
As far as big picture ideas, I like reading many blogs, but the best ideas often come from other sources like Hoisington Investment Management and Absolute Return Partners. I especially like reading independent thinkers like Michael Hudson (read his latest on the specter of debt revolt haunting Europe) and Henry Liu who has many excellent articles on his website and on Asia Times' Complete Henry CK Liu. There are academics and numerous other commentators that I place ahead of any blog in my "must read" category. That is why I have placed extensive list of links on my blog so you can access these comments.
Finally, every blogger has his or her own style. I like posting links to articles, often posting the full article and adding comments (short or long) at the end. Yves and Mish like interjecting on some passages. That is their style and their right (I find it too "mish-mash" for my taste). As far as copyrights, the minute someone posts and article on the internet for everyone to view, it is open. I give full credit where credit is due, posting the link and stating the authors and source, but I like posting full articles so people avoid going back and forth. That is my style and I make no apologies for this (okay Mr. Mish?!?!).
On that final note, I will let all my readers know that I decided to stop posting on Naked Capitalism. I thank Yves for the opportunity, but I am an independent thinker who does not like to be edited and to be honest, I have overextended my stay there and helped her out enough while she wrote her book. I decided to join the team over at Zero Hedge, using my real name, and will continue posting my material as I see fit.
I invite all of you to keep reading Pension Pulse regularly as I keep discussing trends in the pension industry and financial markets the way I've been diligently doing for a little over a year now. I still do not allow comments on my blog because I do not have the time nor the inclination to police them. Feel free to email me (lkolivakis@gmail.com) if you have any specific comments on my posts.
***UPDATE***
Bill Tufts of Fair Pensions For All was kind enough to send me this interesting article,
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Hello Leo.
I'm curious as to what my "agenda" is??? (Point 2)
I guess it's "Truth/justice... ya know, that sorta thing.
What's yours? (I'm new to your writing)
Miss America (aka Rich Hartmann from the RGE Monitor / Seeking Alpha)
....musing the analog thought in a digital wind is the thought that came to mind as i absorbed your post.
This song lyric now comes to mind,
"I talk to the wind, but the wind can not hear, the wind does not hear"
Blogs are gardens to me, each post a bloom of the sort. Comments like the bees and insects that cross pollinate.
I have never posted on your blog before, not sure if i will again, but i do enjoy my visits here from time to time.
thank you Zerohedge
my name is Tiandra (windiepink) by the way, just to dispel any Anonymous myths
The credibility of Zero Hedge will be proved or disproved by subsequent events. I like its anonymity - it means egos don't get in the way of the message.
Hey Leo - for posterity here is a cache of the 183 comments that Yves Smith AKA Susan Miller of Naked Capitalism took down.
copy them because the cache will disappear very very soon
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:k2UwHOXqe60J:www.nakedcapitalism.com...
This is Google's cache of http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/08/who-is-tyler-durden.html. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 23 Aug 2009 05:55:17 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more
Seems to me, if you are going to debase your to keep from defaulting, pumping an extra
.
sleazy linking practices; borderline fraud ..http://www..
hat tip: gay porn
What happened to all the comments on Naked Capitalism's post? They just vanished? By the way Yves, I am not angry. I wish you the best and have decided to move on.
poor Yves (Susan Webber) she's put the gates up over at her blog - it's called "Self-Destructive behavior"
ΚΑΛΗMEΡΑ LEO!
I disagree with your point that somehow one should advertise ' qualifications' to justify the significance of their positions--you said,
"...posting anonymously does not detract from the message but again, please state your qualifications and your agenda."
I have known several brilliant, self educated entrepreneurs. One person who is an inventor, well versed in cell biology and organic chemistry, yet he never made it past 6th grade...So if you insist on qualifications, i think it is another way to attack the messenger.
Sorry that's just my thought.
if the pawn makes it across the board it becomes anything, and rest assured it will the strongest piece
Rats like to propagate, incoming!!!
Leo-- thanks for the post.
I hope whenever you see BS on this site, you call it as you see it.
I'm looking forward to more of your commentary.
I hope all of you guys are ready for a truly catastrophic economic scenario worldwide, with sprinklings of martial law, pandemics, famine and insane weather.
Gerald Celente thanks for joining us...lol
Leo, have you considered editing your posts at NC to a reasonable length?
#45888
We have a Cheeky Bastard here. He's smart and funny. How bout you be Dumb Assed Usesless Comment Making Rude Bastard. That'd be good.
45888 stfu
Nothing rude in my comment. Yours on the other hand set an impossibly high standard of shitheadedness. The fact is, Leo and the endless tedium of Canadian pensions are boring. I like Zero Hedge infinitely better than Naked Cronyism. Even when morons like you hurl insults.
"Leo, have you considered editing your posts at NC to a reasonable length?"
Gee, what is a reasonable response by Leo to this?
"Yes, I have considered editing them to a reasonable length but rejected that. I like posting unreasonable length posts."
"No, I have never considered editing them. Thank you for the suggestion."
No dear one, this was an attack on your part. Perhaps passive aggressive, but an attack. There was plenty rude. There was nothing you were trying to accomplish except an attack. Tell us, where was that comment supposed to go?
If you want to help, then say this:
"Your posts are too long."
Then tell him how he should edit. What kinds of things does he need to attend to? Does he repeat material? Does he belabor the obvious? Is his analysis too jargonized? Does he weave too complex a web for the typical reader to follow. Friendly advice, "You need to edit" includes constructive feedback.
Don't for a second fool yourself. You attacked him.
I stopped teading the NC post the instant I saw that it was reprising the NYPost attempt to smear TD by linking TD/ZH to some dude banned from the securities industry. At that point it was clear that ZH has indeed attracted the lidded gaze of the MSM.
What they can't buy, they smear. Simple as that.
I've had the same thing happen myself, after a couple of reasonably-innocuous blog posts (this and this) declaring that holocaust-denial nuts had a right to deny whatever they liked ... that earned me an all-expense-paid plane trip out of France (after two weeks in one of their concentration camps [deliberate inflammatory language alert...], my documents having mysteriously disappeared during the 160km trip in the van from St Dier d'Auvergne to Lyon).
Back to the point (which has nothing whatsoever to do with da Jooze: it has to do with those who long for power and what they are prepared to do to self-identified 'squeaky wheels')...
ZH has irked someone in power (probably several folks). So next you will discover that Marla has "links to al Q'aeda" (i.e., she's a 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon terrrrist') or that TD is actually Usama bin Laden's cousin's sister's former room-mate. (I am a former hit-man who shot his best friend in the back... for money: that's pretty funny considering I'm an anarchist atheist Freemason - they already had so much other stuff they could have gone with).
What our overlords want is to be able to pull off their once-a-generation heist (like WWI, 1929, WWII, and the Cold War) without the livestock getting too uppity: to hand vast wodges of cash to their banker chums, get some of it back in bribes, and have the livestock pay the tab. What is wrong with that? They ask.
But no, there are parts of the herd who want the rest of the herd to realise that those doors lead to the drop-box; ZH is one such part, and has done sterling work thus far.
Stay safe (and pseudonymous), TD et al.; I'm glad you made the decision to move your hosting to a data haven.
Cheers
GT
GT's Market Rant
Bill Tufts of Fair Pensions For All was kind enough to send me this interesting article, Bloggers hitch wagons to the traditional media.
"It turns out that traditional media remain unrivalled in audience reach. More than anything, bloggers and other "opinionators" want a vast audience. But blogs reach their saturation point quickly, a big audience being 2,000 or so."
http://alexa.org/siteinfo/zerohedge.com
Growing fast. ZH could use more bandwidth, I donated today.
Oh Jeez. Enough already.
Pretty soon we'll be discussing who should be playing the 40 contributors of Zero Hedge on the TV miniseries!
Gasp!
Anyway, welcome Leo. I never read NC much, it just didn't interest me. Now I can read here when pensions are going to blow up, so it's all good.
Leo wrote, "I can conjure up a conspiracy theory"
Lloyd Blankfein=Feliks Dzerzhinsky
Naked Capitalism=The Trust
Susan Webber=Alexander Yakushev
Goldman Sachs=the Cheka
Leo Kolivakis=Boris Savinkov (I hope not)
Tyler Durden, Marla Singer=Sidney Reilly, George Hill
This is dumb.
Why do people care who Tyler Durden is?
Talk about seeing the forrest for the trees.
Read the blog and shut the fuck up about the author. Information is information.
ZH - Please stop acknowledging this nonsense. I come to this website to read the content, and seeing ZH constantly defend it's anon is stupidity. Please stop it right here.
*ANONYMITY DOES NOT NEED TO BE DEFENDED. THAT IS THE POINT OF BEING ANONYMOUS*
I've learned so much from hanging on by my fingernails at this site that I'm eternally grateful. ZH kicks big, red donkey dicks and I'm not worthy.
Welcome Leo
"It seems poor form to reveal Yves' true name if Yves felt the need to use a pseudonym in the first place. As far as I am concerned, infighting between NC, Zerohedge, Tickerforum, etc., is not productive. Instead of fighting amongst yourselves, focus on keeping the system honest."
I agree but honesty begins with being as transparent as possible with your audience. I understand people who need to be anonymous but Yves wrote this in that post on TD:
"I am hardly one to throw stones at pseudonymous bloggers, but it only takes a modicum of digging to figure out who I am (and I have appeared on TV and done a bit of radio)."
And when you scroll all the way to the bottom of NC, you find:
Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008,2009 Aurora Advisors Incorporated
All Rights Reserved
So why use a pseudonym? To look mysterious? Just state who you are and more importantly, what your agenda is. That seems reasonable to me.
Leo
Leo, you are a complete sell out.
Due diligence.
Is that why you got fired? Look it up, there has been quite a bit about it in the news.
Pussy.
It's like Roubini and Larry Summers two peas in a pod except Roubini never disclosed their significant business relationship while at the same time endorsing Summers. Yves Smith, I mean Susan Webber attacks Zerohedge while not being forthright about her own pseudonymous identity and for that matter her status as an alumnus of Goldman Sachs. Sadly her credibility like that of Roubini's is diminished. To that end I wonder if this ploy was ultimately to sell her new book. If it was I think she miscalculated - why would anyone take on someone with the name Tyler Durden.
i use one because a) im a bastard and b) i often tend to be cheeky and c) mix of a and b
tell me about it; on my laptop i have ZH all day long and on my other laptop i browse t3h int3rn3tz and write; really ZH is addictive as hell ..
I do it to look mysterious.
It seems poor form to reveal Yves' true name if Yves felt the need to use a pseudonym in the first place. As far as I am concerned, infighting between NC, Zerohedge, Tickerforum, etc., is not productive. Instead of fighting amongst yourselves, focus on keeping the system honest.
Well, I happen to like Yves, regardless of whether that is her real name or not. Although I will admit that at times she takes positions I don't agree with, but then so does everyone else. I also happen to like Tyler, whoever he, or they, is. However, I must confess to a particular love for Marla.
I think this whole thing about anonymity on the web is ridiculous. Mark Twain was a pseudonym. As was George Eliot. Publius, the list goes on. The Gawain poet was anonymous and remains so to this day, for crying out loud.
In the end, it matters little the name of the author a particular work. Content and clarity are all.
I admire Zero Hedge, because it cuts through the bullshit better than just about any other site. And I've learned a lot here.
Oh, and welcome Leo, you do good work too.
I second. Well said, G Ghost.
Went to montreal grand prix back in the day and sat in the
prancing horses section. It made my harvard days feel like fort
apache the bronx.
Cheers
You outed Yves??!!
See if anyone ever trusts you again.
I hope you are sarcastic because there was never anything to out, she just didn't link to her company on the front of her page but at the bottom of her page. Anyone who wanted to find out who she is could use google...
CB, are you a prancing horses fan or mercedes? Let me guess
you loved BAR.
Sono sempre stato tifoso della Ferrari
Thanks for the shout-out.
CB, I am the same way. TV free for nine months
except football and nascar (sorry I am southern white trash you can take
the southerner out of the south but cant take the south
out of the southerner or white trash either.
Cheers
hey brother, as long as it involves gasoline and crashes and kick ass cars you're good in my book ..
Yves' comment was tame. Grow up.
I, for one, won't be reading your posts.
Project Mayhem, I have a PF-9. It is the tiniest bugger but packs
quite the punch esp. for its size.
Cheers
Yeah I love the thing. One nice mod to make is get some 400 or 600 grain sandpaper and polish the slide and feed ramp. Don't file the aluminum part attached to the polymer -- just the slide + ramp. Then you will not get any FTF or FTE! Oh another thing is to always clean the extractor face and extractor with a toothbrush. Gunk tends to build up there pretty quick.
http://goldenloki.com/gunsmith/keltec/fullrp.htm
Leo,
I have enjoyed reading your pieces so keep up the good work. I read that shit-
show of a thread over at NC and left it saddened at what looked to be
pointless infighting among people who really are all on the same team in the
big scheme of things. I feel much better after reading your post on ZH today
and I'm glad you will be contributing. For all the hyperbole and sarcasm that
can come across there I have a gut feeling that this could be the start of
something bigger. Will it be at ZH? Who knows - complex systems are impossible
to predict specifics. But in a few years we all will probably look back at ZH
as part of the beginning of the open source
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source) finance movement.
I am originally from the computer science / software field and often times the
smartest and most advanced software written starts out with true mavericks
like ZH but then gains professional polish from others who take the free
information and add their own values and reputation to it. 'Information wants
to be free' and in software it is now the agenda of some companies to try and
spread FUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt) about
the value of many anonymous contributors. This is simply a defensive measure
of an antiquated business model. We certainly see that at play by many
established financial players. I believe we are headed the way of the open
source movement with finance and you, ZH, NC and others are the pioneers.
As a minority we need to remember that consistency in our core message is the
most important thing to eventually change the beliefs of the majority. The
great part about free information is everyone can adapt it to their own
agendas and benefit the whole. Credibility vs anonymity misses our greatest
strength. The anonymous messenger's contribution is to start the message. The
credible professional's contribution is to ratify the message, to fix its
mistakes and emphasize its strengths. In the end the information consumer has
their choice of raw, uncut bleeding edge anonymous caveat emptor story or the
academic peer-reviewed blessing of authority. Both feed off of each other and
neither is better or worse than the other. Choice always is better than no
choice.
And BTW. You could out one of them if you wanted, as I mentioned to TD, one just has to make the effort and know where to look.
;)
Leo! Say it ain't so! did you defect?!? LOL
Hey look, Yves is just disgruntled that NC is so-o-o-o-o yesterday's news. That 4Q "economy will come out of the recession BS" does not help them, at all.
"As far a copyrights, the minute someone posts and article on the internet for everyone to view, it is open."
Wrong. Giving attribution does not excuse stealing other people's content (property), and the fact that you fear that your content isn't strong enough to bring readers back after clicking on a link doesn't excuse it either.
http://malor.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/what-bloggers-should-know-about-co...
It flabbergasts me that so many that tout their "Free market" bona fides and bitch so much about the various ways the government steals our money (property) can have such a huge blind spot.