Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Eve Elitist Pack

CK has recently announced that he's dropping the Eve Blog Pack to 21.

I'm completely against the Eve Blog Pack, to the point that a few months ago I removed it from www.evebloggers.com (which lists over 500 blogs about Eve Online). I'm against the Pack because it promotes elitism, by its very admission. I know there's a lot of bloggers who ARE elitists, and they fight and scramble amongst themselves to get on the list. They want to be considered the best of the best of the Eve bloggers.

I couldn't give a rat's arse about it.

I've always blogged for me, for the game, and for the community, and the community is NOT just 20 blogs (+ 1 for CK). The community is a whole lot more than a bunch of people scrambling to vote themselves and their favourite blogs into the the Eve Elitist Pack.

I know that there's always going to be a lot of people who like others thinking they're the best. One thing I've learned in my time here on this earth is that those who seek approval, acknowledgement and recognition aren't usually worth it. The true quality comes from those who just get in there and do it, and they don't seek reward or recognition.

So, in saying all that, I'm withrawing my interest in continuing to be part of the Eve Elitist Pack. It's flattering that a lot of people have voted for this blog, and I really appreciate that. But I cannot condone such an elitist attitude towards blogging about Eve Online and maintain my presence in it as well, especially when I am trying to support the Eve blogging community as a whole. I fully support the Eve blogging community, and even if that means my exposure is reduced because I'm no longer in the Elitist pack, then so be it.

CK, I'd appreciate it if you leave me out of your revised list, thank you.

To continue, I think it's a shame that with over 500 blogs in the community, both CK and the people behind Capsuleer are working together to promote elitism. I sincerely hope that Capsuleer can open up its promotion of all Eve blogs, rather than just a select few, and if they want to chat with me and Ga'len about how to achieve that, we'd be happy to discuss it with them.

I also think it's a shame that very few people promote and discuss www.evebloggers.com I know it's because we're not encouraging elitism, and I know that doesn't sit well with a lot of people that want to be thought of as being better than everyone else. It saddens me that more people seem interested in promoting themselves and a few elitists, than they are in community as a whole.

I don't care that some bloggers aren't 'as good' as others, neither do I care that some aren't as active as others. What I care about is that, as far as I can tell, Eve Online has more people blogging about it than any other game in the world. And if there ARE more people blogging about any other game, they don't seem to be pulled together into a single community.

Ga'len and myself have been working hard to promote the community as a whole, and I'm disappointed to see so many bloggers struggling to shrink it to a select few elitists. I'll have no part of that any more.

In October last year I wrote:

You know, I'm sick to death of all these social niceties that control us. We don't say what we really feel, believe or think because we're afraid of offending people.

Well, you know what? I'm over it.

If you get offended at what I say about things in general, and you take the opinions I have as personal comments against you, then you're far too sensitive and insecure for me to waste my time and energy on trying to keep you happy.
If you're stung by my words, then maybe the truth hurts. Maybe you see yourself as an elitist, and you're not entirely comfortable about it. Maybe it hurts to hear the truth. Well, you can change that if you want.

Support the community. Support your fellow Eve bloggers. At the end of the day, we're all the same, enjoying this virtual reality called Eve Online.

21 comments:

  1. I'm really sorry that it's come to this. I'll certainly accept your request, but hope that we can still mutually comment on each others blog as in the past.

    Lets agree to disagree on the EVE Blog Pack. And move on!

    Cheers, mate!

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  2. No offense, but this looks quite hypocritical considering I wouldn't be reading it right now if not for the pack.

    Second, I only heard about evebloggers *because* of the blog pack (and before all this mess, for the record). And honestly, I hate to put it this way, but it's all very well and nice to run a portal for all eve blogs, but it's completely unusable in total. Smaller aggregators like the blog pack are very useful; I don't have enough time as it is so reading random blogs in an attempt to find something worthwhile is right out.

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  3. Forgot to add: I don't see this all as working to "promote elitism". Different lists and aggregators change their enrollment numbers all the time, both larger and smaller. Frankly, your post reads like you're incredibly paranoid.

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  4. I'm a hypocrite for not wanting to promote elitism, even though I'm one of the elitists? I agree, which is why I've asked to be removed. I guess you didn't see that part of my post. :)

    I'm not sure how I'm 'paranoid' by wanting to promote the whole community rather than just 20. You really don't make much sense.

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  5. It just seemed from the tone and phrasing of your post that you feel like this is some sort of orchestrated affront to evebloggers, which you seemed to have a personal hand in.

    Hence, paranoia.

    ("with over 500 blogs in the community, ... promote elitism")
    ("I also think it's a shame that very few people promote and discuss www.evebloggers.com I know it's because we're not encouraging elitism")

    I mean, come on. People aren't talking about *your* aggregator because you don't encourage "elitism"? That doesn't make much sense.

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  6. Evebloggers might be useful for someone who is already into reading different Eve blogs and is looking for something new.

    For someone completely new to reading Eve blogs, something like the Eve Blog pack is of much greater value. It's a much smaller number of blogs to read and by being small and constant in those blogs you are able to start following different blogs as time progresses. This would eventually lead to the point where the reader wants to read more about specific topics, and not finding it in the Blog pack will start looking elsewhere. I don't know, maybe they'd look at evebloggers??

    Both of these services fulfill different roles in the community and although I understand the anti-elitism sentiment, I can't help but feel you miss the point of the two different approaches, and also come off as a bit of an elitist asshat in the process. Hence somebody's previous hypocrite comments.

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  7. You know, why can't we have both the pack and evebloggers.com and let people decide for themselves what they want to follow and not follow? I think both are great initiatives. The blog pack does need some moderating as there is a lot of dead content there now. Evebloggers does not face this problem as writing means you appear on the page. Looking at it the other way you could say that it promotes spam posting, which makes quality suffer. Not that I feel about it that way but if you want to start an argument it is easy to find flaws in everything ;)

    And yes, I admit, facing removal from the pack made me frown at first but then I was reminded of the good old "write for yourself" attitude. Elitism isn't always a bad thing either. Wanting to improve yourself and become really good at something and wishing to share it with everyone can be a very noble goal. What is more important is what motivates this. Those who do it for fun will always be the winners, doing something to be popular leaves you miserable in the end.

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  8. I disagree with you on the fact of elitism. Are you one of those people that gets their feeling hurt easily? Because this is the kind of attitude that I would expect form someone like that.

    Some people like to be recognized, things like the blog pack recognize blog more than they promote elitism. I agree that the whole community should be represented, but the whole community shouldn't be represented everywhere. I think its perfectly ok to have a list or lists that recognize bloggers that the community feels has done well.

    With that, I have created a proposal for a "eve blog coalition" that both represents ALL eve blogs AND provides incentives and awards for those that enjoy being recognized for their hard work.

    Check out my idea, its different and more detailed from the one you previously read. http://keldar.evewebz.com/02/the-eve-blog-coalition-proposal/

    I would like your opinion, even though i'm already preparing myself for a bashing :P

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  9. One more thing that I just though of.... The biggest reason that I feel that your "Elitist Pack" view is wrong/flawed is because the people in the pack are not elitist. I have never seen a single member of the pack to like they are better than people who are not in the pack. I might think your argument was more valid if the people in the pack acted like they were better, but I fail to see a single time that a member of the pack talked down, or acted elitist in any way, other than being excited that they got into the blog pack and others didnt.

    I understand that you dont think that a single pack/list should get all the views, but just because they are dosnt mean they are elitist.

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  10. Bloody awesome!

    Its like you post what I think!

    Since the whole blogpack re-work came up everyone scrambles for attention and a place at the "altar of blogging"
    I just dont get why it is so important to be on CKs list? -because it is biggest and will give you most hits?
    Sure, but what does hits on a blog mean? Internet-fame? -How on earth is that important in any way?
    I cant see the need to work hard and promote your internet persona to these lengths..

    Anyhow, these days I only use twitter for the #Tweetfleet and www.evebloggers for my daily EvE-news.. blogpack is too much same old every day.

    Also, I think CK is not to blame, he is just a guy with a popular list that everyone has an opinion about how to run.
    -Even me ;)

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  11. This has gotten blown out of all proportion. Its not about elitism, or popularity, or hits, or internet fame. Its about one person picking who they think are the best of the best EVE bloggers. It's not your place to say whether or not you belong on that list, if CK thinks you belong there then thats up to him.

    The blog pack is something for people to aspire to, but in the end is it one person's opinion. The reason its become such a big deal is that pretty much everyone in eve blogging came to the community through the blog pack. It was our first point of contact and our inspiration. This whole furore blew up because some people felt that this entitled them to a say in who appeared in it, when it is not a popularity contest and never was. Remember it is just one man's opinion.

    Turning this into a whol political furore and trying to score points of each other and saying who has a right to say who goes on a list is pointless and can only lead to the kind of flame war that Syncaine and Tobold engage in all too frequently.

    Why make such a big deal out of it?

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  12. @Anthony: Wrong. I am on the blog pack and I am both elite and elitest.

    But seriously, this post is kind of ridiculous BC/Alexia. It sounds way more like you were just looking to write something controversial and stir up some responses than actually stir any sort of reasonable debate. The blog pack is one guys list and all it does is generate a little bit of extra traffic for those on it. It isn't some sort of official CCP list that decides who is going to make a living off their writing this month. There is nothing stopping anyone from creating their own rollups or packs or feeds or sites (as you have done) and thus I cannot understand why you're bitching like a little whiny girl.

    Everyone needs to stop being so concerned with how many hits or subscribers or readers or comments they have and go back to writing a blog because you enjoy it. It's just a fucking video game.

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  13. I don't see the BP as elitist. Rather, I just see it as a way for a person with VERY little free time to get a good chunk of EVE news from all sectors of the game. I don't have the time, frankly, to wade through evebloggers.com (as much as I appreciate what it does for smaller blogs like mine) to see what content there is: I know and trust most of the people on the Pack to tell me what's going on in their part of EVE. I unfortunately mostly only have time to be on the tweetfleet or catch posts through Capsuleer, and the blog pack is super useful for getting me the biggest news.

    And, as many people have said, people are more than capable of making their own lists of blogs to read. The community made CK's list popular, and the community can move on to something else if we feel it's necessary.

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  14. I'm confused, you can post what you think and "If you get offended at what I say about things in general, and you take the opinions I have as personal comments against you, then you're far too sensitive and insecure for me to waste my time and energy on trying to keep you happy."

    But then you get offended by someone else making choices you don't like? Choices which are pretty much that person's expression of which blogs they happen to think are good?

    Seems like the pot calling the kettle black to me.

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  15. I just wanted to comment that Capsuleer is not (at least in my humble opinion) promoting elitism. I'd like to link the recent post they made on the subject:

    http://capsuleer.evesuite.com/blog/2010/02/ahh-the-interwebs-such-flames/

    And the forum thread related to it:

    http://capsuleer.evesuite.com/forums/index.php?topic=431.0

    I discovered your blog through Capsuleer and think they are doing a great amount of work to promote EVE bloggers. As with many things the administration of such is best left to others (thus the use of the blog pack in the first place) but times are changing and they seem willing to change with it. I certainly don't speak for them but wanted to pass these links along.

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  16. SOP for Alexia: hold self up as paragon of hardness and democracy when in reality it's just more pointless complaining about an invented controversy. And yeah, going on and on about somebody publishing a list of what he perceives as the 'best blogs' really is just trolling.

    And BTW, you keep using that word "elitist". I do not think it means what you think it means.

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  17. "Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite — a select group of people with, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight or those who view their own views as so; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern."

    I don't believe in elitism. I believe the community as a whole should be promoted, not just a select few.

    I'm saddened that a number of community members are arguing in favour of an elite pack of bloggers. I haven't checked, but I suspect most of those arguing in favour of it are either on the blog pack, or want to be. Of course you'd argue in favour of it, you're one of them.

    I'm an anti-elitist, a supporter of equality. I am doing what I can to promote the COMMUNITY. If you don't like it, you don't have to. But I'm not going to change what I'm doing just because you're trying to validate your own elitist attitudes.

    You're welcome to unsubscribe from my blog if you don't like me supporting everyone.

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  18. Elite might be a poor choice of wording. Rather his blog pack implies consistent quality. Naturally the word implies is stressed.

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  19. And yet CK himself states it's about 'elite bloggers':

    "...I decided to step-up and create our very own group of elite EVE Bloggers..."

    http://www.crazykinux.com/2010/02/short-history-of-eve-blog-pack.html

    So please don't lecture me on using the wrong word, when I'm referring to what CK calls it himself. Maybe you should be lecturing CK instead.

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  20. I'm not lecturing you, I've simply stated that elite was a poor choice of wording on CK's part. Try being a little less defensive.

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  21. To be honest.... all of the wonderful blogs I have found and followed were either by listening to podcasts.... then following link after link after link in everyone elses individual blogs. I havent once found a blog through a "Blog pack" or some other list.

    There was a food blogging network I was once a part of (it has since gone offline)... absolutely anyone could join, and blogs were listed in order according to posting frequency. i.e. whoever posted last would be up top.

    I know the blog pack is a bit different as it goes into capsuleer.... but I honestly do all my blog reading at home, not from my cell... unless I am trapped at an airport or what have you. ;-)

    Like you, I post for me and anyone who might stumble upon my blog... sure it would be nice to be acknowledged as an "elite" blogger, get some extra traffic... but I won't hold my breath. Honestly I think it would add pressure to live up to some standard, and I cant promise that, so I wont be upset if I am excluded.

    Like you said.... thats not why I created my blog. I did it for me, and any readers I might collect... to watch as Maeve and her sister Aurynn grow and find their paths.

    I am happy with the friends I've made on tweetfleet, and will be happy if thats where my networking ends. I honestly think CK tries his hardest to make everyone happy... bit we all know how hard that is. ;-) I respect him for it.

    I guess what I am saying is in a sense I agree with you about it. The feeling of being "unworthy", but at the same time I try not to let it bother me, and remember why I started all this in the first place. :)

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