The Scum, and the Scrum

Checking out other folks' blogs on the same host (WordPress) as my own, back in February, I discovered one with a particularly unsavory anti-Semitic focus. I was going to post on it then, but decided not to, since this would give the fellow a couple more hits and "eyeballs" on his entries. (I assume a woman couldn't be that stupid, so I'm referring to the blogger as "he".)

However, I'm now going to overrule my earlier decision not to publicize the guy, and instead will include the address of his site – and possibly Blue Dog will choose to sink his fangs into this issue (more with him also in an upcoming blog). Looking at that site again just now, my blood and bile are boiling, and I feel a near-uncontrollable anger; I really need two strong people to hold me back by my arms just now, and someone to cram a wad of dirty cloth in my mouth, while another kind Samaritan rudely shoves large capsules of Prozac up my nose.

First, here's how his intro-page starts out; do note the lousy vocabulary / grammar / spelling / punctuation, and cruddy "logic", all hallmarks of the lowbrowed demagog:

Here is your ultimate resource for Judaism and Torah, approved by World Famous Rabbis. We will explain the teachings of Judaism. Then we will detail the fundamental beliefs of Judaism.

Judaism is like Nazism, just another fascism. Judaism and Zionism are fascisms. They state that followers of Judaism and Zionists are "the Chosen Ones" and thus should rule the world.This is a major proof that Judaism, just like Nazism, is a fascism whose sole purpose is ruling the world and destroying anyone who rejects Judaism and any culture that chooses not to follow it. Indeed, this is exactly what happens in the world in 2006. Anyone who opposes Judaism and its racist ideas is basically tortured, raped and killed. Anyone who reverts from Judaism is hunted down by judaic terrorists and rabbis.Zionism is no different than Judaism, it is mostly a political tool that works Judaism great Goal: "Extending Judaism worldWide and ruling the whole world."

Let's get rid of Judaism!

I won't bother tossing overweight elephants through those gaping holes – although either one of my readers is more than welcome to bombard the fellow with friendly, polite inquiries; note that he appears to have made no entries in most of a year.

A couple weeks after encountering this charming gentleman, I did take on here, in this forum, an (apparent) anti-Semite styling himself "Amalekite" (see down toward the bottom of this blog-entry from early March). I'm not interested in doing so again for this particular piece of crud… and somehow I've got the feel that Mr. "Ultimate Resource" is more entrenched – and less intellectually all together – than that "Amalekite".

What I did, though, back when I first ran into his site, was complain right away to WordPress, in order to see if our mutual host might be able to do something about this. Yes, sigh, I'm naïve. (It goes back many, many generations: Eve was nigh Adam, so therefore Adam was naïve.) But I do get starry eyed, and sometimes even salute our flag, and The American Way. Here's a piece of what I sent to one of the powers-that-be at WordPress; I don't have the original anymore:

> Reported: http://judaism.wordpress.com

> Please either remove the site, or add a disclaimer acknowle[d]ging that there have been protests and complaints about the site's content, and that WordPress does [sic] neither supports nor encourages hate-mongering.

"Mr. Powers" responded very briefly (I'm including WordPress's catch-all email address:

-----Original Message-----
From: TOS Reports @ WordPress.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:04 AM
Subject: [WordPress #JNJ-875999]: judaism.wordpress.com

Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful report. My first question is always how did you get to the blog?

Thank you,

Mr. Powers

So I answered him:

Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 6:44 PM

Thanks for the quick response, Mr. Powers:

I've been blogging via WordPress for almost a month now (MT2mb, as Aging Child). I also poke around other blogs on WordPress to see what other folks are writing and ranting about, as well as for a look at how they've put their own pages together (some are really impressive!).

A few times lately, under "Today's Hot Blogs" on your main page, there's been a blog named something like "YiddishWord#@$!", and is maintained by what I gather is a college-aged Jewish fellow. When I checked some of his postings -- one of which IIRC was called "Anti-Semitism" -- I found a reference to that "Judaism" site, and check[ed] it out… and quickly found my blood boiling.

Let me stress: I don't advocate (in fact, I *oppose*) censorship… but leaving that site unaddressed (i.e., no disclaimer, and apparently no reprimand) suggests tacitly that WordPress does not stand against hijacking a free forum of ideas by one-sided hate-mongers.

On reflection, simply taking that site down does smack of censorship, or at least enforced conformity… both of which are opposites to the concept of free speech. Could at least some positive spin/example be employed? E.g., "While we at WordPress would be the first to defend any individual's right, anywhere within reach of the worldwide web, to express their feelings and experiences without hindrance, we must stress our strongest contention that hateful, divisive, and (arguably) bigoted and racist postings, such as those below, are antithetical to the flow of idea and experience we seek to facilitate and encourage through our open-source..." etc.

And "In the spirit of encouraging this ever-changing flow of free speech, we have decided not to terminate this weblog, as some readers have requested, but instead are leaving it up -- distasteful as many of us may find the content. And we provide here a link <…> for you to post your comments to the statements here" etc. That link could go to the site's owner, or to particular forum, etc.

Even freedoms have their bound(arie)s; otherwise, one could arguably post things like "Here's how to strangle a baby", "Here's where I found some great bomb components", "How I successfully hacked the Bank of New York", etc. Freedom of speech, yes. But freedom is not license.

Regards,

AgingChild

I insist I don't have any more than the average-sized ego. But Powers' response still seemed like a bit of a blowoff:

Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:04 PM

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

Currently our process is to mark a blog as mature and take them out of community tags and other community tools.

Is the evil we know worse than the evil we don't?

Acknowledging the blog or the content empowers them. This blog would seem to a fairly easy case, but others are not -- imagine a blog in a language you can't reach [sic] with content that is objectionable to the male society repressive of women's rights; or at another end "sex in public" political advocates.

This topic is regularly on our minds, and we appreciate your insights.

Mr. Powers

However, I strongly agree with his frustrating truth that engaging and/or acknowledging such scum can be taken by selfsame vermin as empowerment/validation.

I didn't respond further to Mr. Powers (no real need), and until today haven't even been back at that execrable site. I'm not certain how to tell whether WordPress ever did take "Ultimate Resource" out those "community tags and other… tools". Maybe one of you readers can dig further, if you don't mind frequent gagging, and fingernail-gouges in your palms. I'm not going to bother… or I might have to burn a copy of Mein Kampf on his front yard just to cleanse myself.

Anyway, the above is preface to another, somewhat different, tussle I had with WordPress this week – not to chew on the hand that hosts me, of course:

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:32 PM
To: 'TOSReports'
Subject: WordPress hosting a spam-site?
Importance: High

Please note that this "random blog":

http://veryangel.cn/index.php/religion/13067/why-jesus-is-more-than-mere-chocolate-mt2mb

…was lifted directly from my own blog-page:

http://agingchild.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/why-jesus-is-more-than-mere-chocolate/

Akismet flagged their trackback of my blog as spam, and I believe that is quite correct. (I'm picturing their "blog" as the front for a webcrawler that trolls for email addresses, and also regularly pulls out and posts other folks' blogs to give an appearance of legitimacy.)

Their domain indicates an origin in mainland China, yet the bottom of their page claims "VeryAngel is proudly powered by WordPress". If that is true, is there any way they can be reprimanded, if not actually pulled?

I know that, among 1.2 million blog-sites on WordPress, my complaint is a tiny whine against the roar of everyone else… but could you possibly look into – and behind – this issue, and that site? Thanks for any and all assistance you can provide.

Regards,

AgingChild

I'd also left a genuine protest directly with "Very Angel", in the form of a comment following on "their" blog; this is akin to attacking a flood with a spoon, or fork:

Please note: the above blog-entry was lifted without my permission from my blogsite, AgingChild.WordPress. I did not authorize it, and WordPress rightly caught the usage and identifies THIS site -- Very Angel -- as a spammer's. Note that they appear to be based out of Communist China.

 (Long live the spirit of Tien-an Min Square 1989, you butchers!!)

Though the links I put in my blog-entry appear to work fine, I advise any reader, in the strongest possible terms, not to to [sic] click on any links and/or ads here. If they're legit, the advertisers must be snubbed (for tacitly endorsing the stealing of other people's intellectual creations). But I suspect that the other links may actually take you to more spam- and virus-sites.

It is possible that "Very Angel" is also hosted by WordPress... in which case I will be complaining most strongly.

Dzai dzhyen. [Mandarin Chinese for "see you later"]

Aging Child

This isn't the first time I've tangled with such scum; besides a delightful exchange last month with a Ghanaian spammer, months ago there was another site snitching my blogs and claiming them for their own. I just now spent the last couple hours going through my last six months of entries, and I can't find the one where I complained about them then, too. Maybe I never posted that particular grumble… but if I did, and I find it later, I'll link you to it.

Back to the latest thievery. A different "Mr. Powers" responded to my complaint to WordPress:

From: TOSReports @ WordPress.com
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 12:51 AM
Subject: [WordPress #THF-139264]: WordPress hosting a spam-site?

Since their blog is hosted at WordPress.com there really isn't anything that we can do. You can try contacting them and asking them to take it down (there is an email address on their about page: http://www.booknn.cn/?page_id=2), but I wouldn't bet on it actually happening. That blog and the one at http://www.booknn.cn/ look like they are just there for the advertising.

It is unfortunate and unpleasant, but copying posts from other blogs like this isn't uncommon and usually hosted in a company and country that make it difficult if not impossible to do anything about.

John Smith

John, John – I'm not that naïve. I answered him this morning:

Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 10:23 AM
To: ' TOSReports'
Subject: RE: [WordPress #THF-139264]: WordPress hosting a spam-site?

Mr. Smith, thank you for the surprisingly quick response to my inquiry!

I'm not sure I understand your hands' being tied on this. Since that site is hosted by WordPress, and you are WordPress, aren't there Terms of Service/Agreement by which these folks must abide? And if they aren't doing so, this would give WordPress authority to reprimand, if not actually pull, their site.

Further recourse for WordPress might also be possible if any advertisers using these people are also connected directly with WordPress as above-board advertisers: an official complaint/notice could be lodged, for instance; advertisers would not like to have their prospective revenue threatened, and hopefully would back off.

Webcrawling advertising scum like Very Angel / Book NN will no doubt quickly put up a fresh site and be back in business within a few hours – but this would keep WordPress's hands clean of the matter, and free you of any complicity in the annoyance such people are provoking through their thievery of intellectual property.

Please clarify, at your earliest convenience, where I might be reading this wrong. Thanks again for your attention!

Regards,

Aging Child

No answer yet, of course – but I'll toss it up here once I get it.

And forget that aforementioned fork and spoon; likely I'm tackling a flood of slime with a pair of chopsticks… made of rice-paper. Fortunately, I'm wearing shorts today.