What Would You Do?
For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, I offer this Blogging Question. It’s NOT AT ALL Hypothetical, but I’ll phrase it that way.
New Bloggers, you might listen in carefully on this one. . . .
Suppose you are me. Suppose you are looking at your stats one day recently, and you see someone from one IP has accessed over 25 pages. Suppose that someone has accessed those 25 pages in under 40 minutes.
Now, suppose the IP is a Company IP with a company name. Suppose you can pinpoint the exact city in which the server is located. Suppose you know how to reach the Director of HR and the Director of IT.
What would your response to this situation be?
I’m thinking this person is quite fortunate that I am the nice one. What are you thinking?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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What an interesting question Liz. I thought having my blog accessed by a company, many times, in 40 minutes sounded quite cool. There goes the promotion machine inside me talking, anything for hits! (Well Almost anything)
I would be worried if someone accessed my blog that many times while they were at work, only because they could get in trouble at work for browsing blogs…
Am I totally missing the point here? LOL -Sebastian
Hey, Sebastian,
It’s great if someone can read that many pages that fast or is printing them just to read them. I do that sometimes. Though I think over 25 pages might be a LOT to print. . . .
Most new bloggers aren’t aware that folks can figure out such things. Or that their company owns anything that they do on the company server and the company machine.
You should’ve placed something like:
“Pop-quiz hotshot!….”
Not sure what you mean, taorist.
He (or she) was already gone by the time I read my stats.
It happens at this blog more often than you might think. I have a lot of content that people want, i guess it’s a compliment. But I’m starting to wonder . . .
Keanu Reeves…..Speed.
As for the Hypothetical question:
Probably, I’d let it just be…..some people don’t want to be contacted. If they want to contact the blogger, they’ll do it either via-e-mail or comments section.
However, if they were MINING my blog….hmmmmmmmmmm
Took me a minute to get what you were talking about . . . Took you a minute to see what I mean. 🙂
Yeah, my brain cells still trying to wake up….heheheheh.
What are your plans then?
Hey Liz,
My question would be, was it mostly in one category?
Say, New Blogger Page, or something like the Net Neutrality Page.
The former may lead to the assumption that it is someone interested in blogging.
The latter could be someone (or company) trolling for information on that subject.
Just a thought…
Joe
In this case, yes. And in most cases it usually is in one category. Someone will just go from page to page to page.
I found the same thing when I “improved” navigation on my blog. If someone is interested enough to through the various posts on a subject, I think it’s a good thing.
I guess in this case, it would really depend on the particular category they were surfing.
J.
Joe,
I thought so at first too . . . but when at least once a week someone hits the blog for 40 minutes and leaves with 25 or more pages I start to wonder.
There’s no conversation, no relationship there.
No plans, taorist.
I don’t decide things I don’t know I just wonder about them.
Can you block the IP?
That would be my choice if I didn’t want someone trolling & possibly stealing (yes stealing) content.
J.
Nah, every week it’s someone different.
Besides, you know me. I couldn’t do that. I write for everyone to read. 🙂
That’s because you’re the nice one.
J.
There you have it!
I read your how to explain mom post. That was very cool.
I know, I read your comment and of course I answered.
I do appreciate your stopping by, it’s always good to have a friend drop in.
And thanks for the plug you just gave me.
Joe
Hey Joe,
No problem it was a great read in reality. 🙂
Geez, I guess I’m not paranoid enough, but it sounds to me like some poor slob working 9-to-5 in Cubeville just took his/her time surfing through your site (and there IS a lot on it!)
If one is a newbie blogger trying to figure it all out, one won’t leave comments, either, for fear of looking foolish.
I have, like, 4 whole months of family travel blogging under my belt so I’m all over looking dumb. 🙂
Thanks, Sheila
Hi Sheila,
I’m not trying to be paranoid. Sorry if I sound that way. I’m really nice. Honest. I just told a friend off line that I suspect it’s someone who prefers to read print rather than on screen.
It’s just a little disconcerting when it happens about once a week.
Blogging is about conversation. Half the content is in the comments. People expand and extend and improve on what I say . . . they make it better, stronger, and like you’re doing, they clarify it and set me straight.
Well, you have a very open and friendly blog; some others that I’ve “spoken up” on are pretty unresponsive (esp. the dorkiest tech ones, frankly.)
I wish them well in their dark rooms, eating Cheetos.
Now, about the print thing; no kidding, my Mom prints out a lot of her emails and other stuff to read. I’ve decided I’d rather have her do stuff like that but still know what “Google” is than to keep harassing her about it.
I picked up your RSS feed today and look forward to reading more on here — thanks, Sheila
Hey Sheila,
I really don’t like those blogs where you have to be part of the club to talk. I got enough of that in high school. I think most of us did.
That’s why I edited the header on this blog. I didn’t name the blog, by the way. I inherited the name. I wanted the blog to be about community and conversation so I marked the header to make that statement. I think it says it in really big letters –eh?
Sometimes I talk too much on this blog. But I never let anyone get away without being noticed. 🙂
AND I really like it when someone teaches me something or catches me out like you did. 🙂
Welcome to Successful Blog, Sheila. We need more voices like yours around here.
Hey Liz,
You got me confused there for a while. The way you phrased your Hypothetical the first thought I had was that a company was possibly monitoring what you have said about them or an issue. If that was so then good, you’re doing a stand-up job.
But lurking through the comments it’s more a stealing thing – which is becomming all too common these days.
You can always use copyscape to monitor this.
Maybe you’re seeing it from the way you and I normally read a blog – on the blog, taking or time, via rss etc., Maybe as more people get into blogs we’ll see different ways: saving, printing become more common etc., I know I save many longer posts myself for later reading.
I know that when I want to learn a specific topic I surf the net and save as much as I can in one go and sort through it later.
But 25 pages in 40 minutes, eh … that’s quite doable, especially as we’ve all become great scanners of text online. But if it’s every week, well that’s a big Hmmmmm for me as well.
Have I made you more paranoid? 🙂
Hey Martin,
It’s not always the same person, or the same part of my blog. But there’s usually one IP a week, probably a reader like we are trying to get it on paper. . . .
Just gets to be a LOT.
So you’re torn: if it’s a genuine reader wanting to read it on paper and probably get more out of it then you should be delighted … whereas, if it’s a scraper…
As I said, copyscape does an awesome job. I’ve used it last year to great effect to help some friends out. Caught and stopped a few red-handed. It was a real eye-opener to see what’s going on out there.
If it’s genuine, then you wouldn’t really want to approach them – don’t think they’ll like being monitored themselves.
My 2 cents: let if go but keep watching and utilise copyscape to make sure.
Martin,
It always was my plan to let it go. I just wanted to hear what folks thought about it.
Me — I’m always going to be the nice one. Unless it’s outright theft.
Thanks though I’ll check that out. You know I value your opinion.
’tis the way Liz – be nice but leave some room for the lean. mean liz fighting machine to come out if need be.
And so you should value my opinion – I’m your greatest fan. 🙂
Now let me help clean up your blogroll – I’m blushing I’m on it 3 times. Get rid of SmallOfficeMedia and SmallOfficeList but keep ePublishingDaily on there (and push it if you like ) 🙂
Completely off topic: I’m away from all you guys (my bloging buddies) for a week and I come back to another blogging furore: the TechCrunch Design Blowup. Poor Rachel … but I can really sense the swaying of goodwill will go to her. She’ll gather a bunch of new fans from all this. TC will carry on hyping the hype till there’s no more hype to hype.
Heck, this all should be going in your next Open Mike post – which will be when?
Thanks for your support Martin. I’ll clean up my blogroll There are a few others I’ve been looking at.
Sorry I got lost last night. I have an early meeting this morning.
OPEN MIKE NIGHT IS TONIGHT TUESDAY MAY 16TH
OK I am late on this one. I wouldn’t say it was completely paranoid Liz, we all should take certain precautionary measures. I would probably try to pinpoint what the motives of their actions are by investigating a little. I wouldn’t immediately jump to any conclusions but it does sound a bit strange.
Ok I need to go get some coffee. be back in a few… 🙂
Steve,
I don’t know how I can do much more than watch and or report it. The information I get is the server, city and the server owner.
I don’t want to cause trouble for the reader. I’m like the U.S. law. I’d rather have 100 guilty people go free than harass 1 innocent reader who likes my content and my blog. I only wish that the folks who do it would stop and leave a comment so that I would know that they are really reading what I wrote.
Hey that was a great analogy and I think you hit the nail on the head with that one.
Well I read through some of your archive late last week. Good content in there. Hope it wasn’t me Lol.
No worries, Steve, even if it was.
I tend to wonder about everything. Curious and curiouser . . . like Alice in Wonderland. I don’t suppose it would surprise you that I was Alice in college. 🙂
My friend, Peg, says I’m the most curious person she knows.
I ask her whether that means I’m strange or that I want to know about everything.
She always answers, “See?”
It seems like this blog is arguably work realted – any you might reasonably expect a company blogger to save some of your pages here for reference. I’ve occasionally savedd archives of blogs I liked, because so many people just up and delete their entire blogs.
But your experience goes with the territory of blogging. The best to protect your content is to declare a copyright with the creative commons declaration: http://creativecommons.org
And the other day I saw that agagreflex.blogspot.com uses http://www.copyscape.com which does internet searches to see if anyone else has stolen and reposted your content.
Thanks indie,
As someone who also prints out pages to read while I’m away from the computer, I can’t fault folks who do that too.
Thanks for the great tips about where to go — Martin mentioned copyscape as well. It seems to really be catching on. The content theft issue is really coming to the forefront of blogging consciousness.
I recently found (by total accident) a blogger who had reposted a few of the photos I used at indeterminacy. They had been reposted to a flickr account, and from there linked to various posts. I don’t really mind, and probably can’t mind, since I’m posting found photos after all.
Well, I’m in complete disagreement with everything that this post represents .. oh well.
Check your stats for .. mts.net .. that’s probably me. I work like a sonzazabeach and, with two dogs here .. everytime I get off my chair in my office (in home) they think I’m going to take them for a walk or car ride or feed them. So, I have a pot of coffee and water in my office, and between jobs or just when I’m thinking I surf. Sometimes, I surf sidebars, or related links around the ‘net .. or, like in here .. I’ll read one article – leave the window open – get back to work .. and come back and read some more later.
As for 25 pages in 40 minutes .. every play telephone tag? Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to start a new task until you finish the old one .. the person could just be killing time.
Besides .. it’s not the internet to monitor people using it during business hours or other times .. it’s for the businesses to monitor people they are paying to do other things (besides play on the internet)
Hi Indie,
Yeah, I guess you can’t mind if they’re found photos, except, of course the person who used them doesn’t necessarily know that. It’s not nice. Still that he or she would do that. I think.
Hi Hart,
It’s not you. It’s also not usually during business hours. It just happens that the last one was. I just wondered what other folks’ opinion was. I do think it would be nice if someone would leave a comment once in a while to say something. But maybe that’s expecting a lot.